


Sede Vacante

by peach_oolong



Series: The Diana LaFrenz Chronicles [3]
Category: Bots Master
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Betrayal, Blood and Injury, Canon Continuation, Corporate Espionage, Death, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Angst, Family Drama, Friendship, Gen, Love, Original Character(s), Platonic Female/Female Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Self-Discovery, Uneasy Allies, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 23:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 79,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11091759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peach_oolong/pseuds/peach_oolong
Summary: Feeling disillusioned by the events of "Dido's Lament," Diana LaFrenz decides to abandon her life as Lady Frenzy to become a "normal person." Or whatever passes for "normal," when you have one of the most famous faces in the world, too much money, and few practical skills. With the aid of new friends, a surprising ally from the past, and an old frenemy, Diana LaFrenz builds the life she's always wanted, but Paradim isn't about to let his most valuable asset leave the Corp without a fight.





	1. Brunnhilde’s Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Definition of sede vacante: literally means “empty chair,” and refers to an empty episcopal seat in the Roman Catholic Church upon the death or resignation of a bishop. The term is most often used to describe the interim period that begins after a reigning pope has died or resigned and ends when a new pontiff is elected. In this case, the “empty chair” in question is the Papal Archbasilica of St. John in the Lateran, which is the official ecclesiastical seat of the pope when he acts as archbishop of Rome. The relevance of sede vacante to the Bots Master world should become obvious as you read this story.

Diana LaFrenz, formerly known as Lady Frenzy, opened her eyes lazily, unused to the bright lights streaming through the large porthole-style windows in her mountain hideout. For a minute, she wondered where she was, until she recalled the details of her recent flight from RM Corp City. She sat up in the jack-o-lantern orange water bed, and looked around at her new home, which looked like the unholy offspring between a cast-off Epcot Center exhibit and a Peter Max painting. The position of the sun in the sky suggested that it was about ten o' clock in the morning; surely, Paradim would have noticed that she was missing by now. Diana felt a twinge of anxiety, half-expecting a commando team of green bots to burst through the doors and windows to forcibly return her to RM Corp City, but no such invasion would occur that day or at any other point during her stay in the Owlshead Mountains. Although Paradim had been her closest confident for the past decade, even he didn’t know the full extent of her real estate holdings, and had no idea that she was holed up on the other side of California.

Diana rose from bed, and dressed for the day. She toyed with the possibility of just wearing the same clothes in which she had slept, but the part of her who always imagined Ms. Schelling looking over her shoulder, reading to whip her at the slightest breach of etiquette, decided that she needed to keep up her usual dress and beauty regiment, even if no one else was around to care about it. Diana realized that for the first time in her life, she didn’t have anyone to tell her how her time should be organized.

 _No Ms. Schelling_ , Diana thought. _No Grandfather. No Paradim. It’s just me. And this proto-life I’m carrying._

Diana pulled out a notebook and a fountain pen from her steamer trunk and started writing. She had kept a journal since she was a child, but in true British aristocratic fashion, the only things she ever wrote about were mundane things like the weather or what she had for breakfast. These content-free entries had continued even at the height of Project Krang, when her life was punctuated by non-stop conflict and excitement. After spending her entire life suppressing her real feelings, both in the company of others and in her own mind, Diana decided that her next foraying into journal writing would be an accurate representation of her inner life.

_September 14, 2026_

_I am writing this journal entry from my secret hideout in the Owlshead Mountains. Last night, I left RM Corp City, the place that I have called home for almost seven years, to “go find myself,” as some aged Baby Boomer might say. The most obvious way that I plan to find myself is through pregnancy. It is said that by becoming a parent, one relives one’s own childhood. Having not had a conventional childhood, I suppose I can live vicariously through that of the future Viscount or Viscountess LaFrenz. The other way that I plan to find myself is by leaving the Corp to forge a new life. While my tenure at the Corp has been financially rewarding, I believe that I have accomplished all that I can there from the perspective of personal growth. Since the United States is the land of perpetual reinvention, I see no reason why I can’t turn my back on my previous life and begin anew._

After finishing her short journal entry, Diana wondered what to do next. She had brought a large cache of books with her, but she’d read them all many times, and had no desire to revisit Hegel or Virgil at the moment. She wanted mindless entertainment to divert her overactive mind away from anything that would cause her to dwell upon her past and current woes. Fortunately, the previous occupant of the bunker, Thomas "Tommy" LaFrenz VI, had been a connoisseur of superficiality and left the tapes behind to prove it. In addition to the homemade porn stash Diana had found the last time she visited the bunker, there had also been a large cache of VHS and Betamax tapes of television shows from the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as some records from that same time period. They, along with the reel to reel porn tapes, had all been restored, although the latter had been placed in a safety deposit box after Lady Frenzy’s victorious meeting with Mrs. Todd-Iverson. Diana picked up a Betamax tape labeled _Wonder Woman with the outrageous Lynda Carter_ , put it in the machine, and settled into the pod-shaped couch to begin her pop culture binge watching.

_*_

_October 10, 2026_

_I recently finished watching the entirety of the series known as_ The Love Boat _, which is now realize is where Tommy got the song that he sang to me on my seventh birthday. I think he may have mentioned that he got the song from a TV show, but I don’t remember anymore._ The Love Boat _is a ridiculous series, filled with the worst clichés and hackneyed writing. And yet, I was absolutely transfixed by it in a way that I haven’t been since I last went to the Bayreuth Festival (I’m so glad I paid the Wagner family to put on a traditional staging of_ Parsifal _, because I really could not have tolerated some awful regitheatre production). I suppose this is a ridiculous feeling, but when I watched_ The Love Boat, _I felt like I was connecting to Tommy in some arcane way. But when have emotions ever not been ridiculous_?

_Lately, I’ve been looking at my photo albums so I can guess what the future Viscount or Viscountess LaFrenz might look like. I think it will be a given that he or she will be blond, not just as a child, but for life; if nothing else, the genes for blond hair are strong in this family, even if the genes for intelligence appear to be weak. Aside from that, who knows? The best-case scenario would be for the baby to have Ziv’s easy-going temperament and intelligence with my looks and self-confidence. The worst case would be for the baby to inherit Blitzy’s truculence and Sophie’s idiocy and penchant for drugs and promiscuous sex. Such an outcome would be too horrible to contemplate, but I suppose anything is possible with the roulette wheel called genetics._

The next four weeks of Diana's life passed by in a blur of compulsive outfit changes and cheesy sitcoms. As Diana watched the ancient wood paneled television, maintenance bots made repairs around the building, while maid bots prepared her meals and did other household chores. Although most of her proteins came from cans, canned caviar in particular, a sophisticated hydroponics system enabled Diana to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables in spite of the harsh climate. She took walks through the sprawling complex, and observed the flora and fauna from the porthole shaped windows. She also did light cardio and calisthenics, both to strengthen her body after her period of catatonia, and to maintain a healthy body for the task of childbearing. However, the bulk of Diana's time was spent watching old TV shows, listening to records from the 1970s and early 1980s, and trying not to think about the recent series of unpleasant events that had almost consumed her life.

Prior to arriving at the bunker, Diana's knowledge of popular culture had been scant; Ms. Schelling believed that no cultural works of value had been produced since 1914 and her grandfather had considered the disappearance of Glenn Miller in 1944 to be the death of good taste in the West, meaning that Diana had grown up without the cultural markers that were familiar to her peers. She knew a bit about Motown and British rock from the 1960s, because those were genres her father Tommy had liked, but for the average twenty-something in 2026, such things were “old people music.” Her ignorance of popular culture hadn't been a problem in her previous life, because everyone in the rarefied circles Lady Frenzy associated with was constantly trying to project sophistication. Consequently, low-brow subjects like popcorn movies, mass market paperbacks, Internet memes, and televiewer programs were never discussed. It wasn't until Ziv expressed his shock that she had never seen any iteration of _Star Wars_ that she realized how her cultural snobbery could be a liability when trying to bond with a same-aged peer. Thus, Diana rationalized her immersion in kitsch as a useful corrective for her years of isolation, especially now that she planned to be a “normal person” once she left the bunker. True, all the tapes in the bunker were of shows that were quite old, but Diana reasoned that having pop culture knowledge that ended around 1985 was still an improvement over pop culture knowledge that ended in 1944 or 1965.

Diana's plans to simply stay in the Owlshead Mountains for an indefinite period of time hit an unexpected snag, when her mind, bereft of human contact, began playing tricks on her. Humans were simply not meant to lead completely solitary lives, and being confined in a sprawling compound with only a handful of bots and old VHS and Betamax tapes to keep her company were not conducive to Diana's still-fragile mental health. She started seeing things that weren't there; at first it started with dots and unexplained flashes of light, and eventually progressed to seeing non-existent people and objects. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of these hallucinations focused on the past lives that she tried to mentally suppress.

“What do you mean, justify my existence?” Diana demanded to what she thought was a vision of her late mother, but was actually a wild burro peering curiously at her through one of her porthole windows. “I have every right to exist. Much more than you, you ignorant slut. I've managed the largest company in the world, been a concert musician, and graduated from world class universities as a child. What have you ever done, besides sleep with anything with a pulse and snort, smoke, and inject everything that isn't bolted down?”

The burro sniffed the air, and then started licking the window.

“Don't have anything to say in your defense? I'm not surprised, since you never were one with words, but don't think your silence will protect you.”

After determining that there was no food to be had at the peculiar structure, the burro turned away from Diana to continue its desert wanderings.

“Don't you turn your back on me!” Diana shouted at the retreating burro. “Nobody turns their back on Diana LaFrenz!” She got up to continue her rantings, tripped on a pod-shaped coffee table, and fell on the floor. Fortunately, the thick shag carpeting and the table broke Diana's fall, and she only received a number of bruises, but the accident shook her out of her delusions.

 _It's finally happened_ , Diana thought. _I'm completely losing my mind. It must be because I'm in isolation; solitary confinement does things to your brain. I've got to leave, but where can I go?_

Remaining supine on the ground, Diana thought about where her next destination should be. She suddenly remembered that she planned to go to Painted Mesa, New Mexico to see if she could have the war monument rebuilt. Since Painted Mesa was in the middle of nowhere as far as the Corp was concerned, it would be a good place to decamp until she decided on a more permanent living arrangement.

Getting off the ground, Diana went to her closet and looked somewhat hesitantly at a pair of designer House of Lebec jeans. She knew that if she wanted to blend in with “normal people,” she would have to dress down and not look quite so conspicuous, and part of that had to include wearing jeans. Until the day she had been fulminating at a burro, Diana had never worn pants of any kind on a regular basis, because Ms. Schelling thought that an old-fashioned convent school-type dresses was more conducive to creating a formal pedagogical environment, while her grandfather believed that “girls should look like girls." Her first impression of jeans was that the crotch area went in all the wrong directions, while the legs felt horribly stiff and confining. However, as she continued to pace around the bunker and broke the jeans in, the feelings of discomfort subsided. Although her House of Lebec jeans were no cheaper than the haute couture she had worn as Lady Frenzy, Diana assumed that they looked commonplace enough for her to pass as “normal,” assuming one didn't notice the telltale House of Lebec insignia on the back pocket.

The next order of business was to change her make-up profile, so her face wouldn't ping anyone's Lady Frenzy radar. Learning how to apply make-up was one of those things girls were supposed to learn from their mothers, but since Diana's own mother had never been anything more than a cautionary tale, she had instead learned that skill from the master cosmetic technicians at the House of Lebec's Paris headquarters during a summer jaunt when she was thirteen. Although it had been an unsentimental experience, Diana had learned how to do a professional make-up job at an early age, without acquiring any of the clumsy habits most women acquired as young teens. Consequently, Diana could drastically change her appearance without going under the knife or resorting to outside props. After experimenting with several different styles, Diana finally decided on a fairly natural look that she thought would make her seem like a “normal person.” Satisfied with her new “regular” persona, Diana packed her luggage into the heli-bot, and left the bunker.

*

Diana's heli-bot landed at a storage facility located outside of Sacramento. She owned a number of storage units throughout California that mostly contained the miscellaneous items she had inherited from her long-dead uncle Michael, the noted engineer and speed demon. One of the many things Michael had bequeathed to Diana was a grey 1995 Mercedes Benz station wagon that the ingenious inventor had extensively modified. Unbeknownst to anyone, not even Paradim, Diana had continued tinkering with the car, not just to bring it up to current emissions standards and electrify the fuel source, but replaced the body of the car with Dr. Borenstein's semi-indestructible alloy which was in turn covered with LF Tech’s patented durasteel coating to protect it from the corrosive effects of citric acid. The alterations that Michael and Diana had made to the vehicle were so extensive that the station wagon was essentially a customized tank that was masquerading as a conventional Mercedes, and that was exactly how the would-be “normal person” wanted it; if anyone tried to infer with Diana LaFrenz's “normal life,” they would be sorry indeed.

The car was already fully charged, always plugged in for the day when its owner would need to use it. Diana felt slightly guilty – or whatever passed for guilt in her mind – about using so much energy to keep the car plugged in 24/7, but the urgency of her current situation seemed to justify her waste. After shifting her luggage to the trunk of car, she gingerly moved the car out of the storage unit, while the heli-bot took the place of the car in the storage unit. After locking the unit, Diana got behind the driver's seat and began the long drive to Painted Mesa, New Mexico.

_October 25, 2026_

_I have finally left the Owlshead Bunker, due to the unforeseen difficulties being in isolation has caused for my still-fragile mental health. Today, I go forth into the world, not as Countess Diana LaFrenz or Lady Frenzy, but as a normal person, out to create my own destiny. Avante!_


	2. The White Chick

David Rivas, proprietor of the Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavanderia along with his wife, Betty, lived an ordinary life in Painted Mesa, New Mexico. Since the Bot Revolution eliminated the need for human workers in agriculture, manufacturing, and most of the service industry, it was more difficult for the hardscrabble residents of Painted Mesa to aspire to the middle class than ever. There were people like the Rivases, who were able to be relatively successful small business owners, but many denizens of Painted Mesa formed a permanent underclass, with few prospects in the legitimate economy. One of these people was Archie Ramos, David’s father-in-law, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a soldier in Iraq and hadn’t been able to hold a job in almost twenty years. Archie spent most of his time watching TV in the Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavanderia’s back office in a permanent daze, because Betty and David were unable to afford any kind of full-time care for him. Also present in the office were the Rivases’ four-year-old twins, Marisol and Mateo, because Rivases were also unable to afford daycare. The Rivas tried to provide some kind of structure for Marisol and Mateo by taking time out to read to them and attend to their other needs, but even on a good day, the two children tended to run around the place like it was a playground. David hoped the twins would be able to go to college and take advantage of the jobs in the robotics sector, but for the time being, he and Betty needed to protect them from the often-hostile outside world.

Any possibility David Rivas had for living an ordinary life ended the day Diana Carter walked in the door of the Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavanderia.

It wasn't hard to miss Diana Carter; the only white people one tended to see in Painted Mesa were government agents, usually those associated with ICE, the INS, or the ATF. These agents were mostly pasty middle-aged men, not tall, fit, and very attractive women. She seemed familiar, but David couldn't figure out why, so he kept staring, both to ascertain her identity and to take in her impressive pneumatic qualities. Betty noticed that her husband was ogling the stranger, and pulled him away from the machines to talk to him in private.

“ _What's that woman doing here_?” Betty said, speaking in Spanish so the visitor wouldn't understand. The woman was looked around at the machines, like she had no idea how to use them and had never seen such contraptions in her life. Her confusion was compounded when Marisol and Mateo ran out of the back office, and started to play tag among the machines. The woman’s baffled expression as she watched the kids play suggested that child-like behavior was completely foreign to her.

“ _I don't know_ ,” David replied, corralling the twins. “ _She just walked in_.”

“ _She seems...confused_ ,” Betty said sympathetically. Recognizing that she was out of her element, the woman approached the Rivases, eyeing the children somewhat hesitantly, and asked for help.

“ _Excuse me_ ,” the woman asked in Spanish. “ _Can you tell me how to use these machines, please_?”

David and Betty stared at the woman in astonishment. Even though the woman had only uttered two sentences, they could tell that she spoke Spanish well. Not the halting high school Spanish the ICE agents used when they made their periodic sweeps of Painted Mesa, but the polished Spanish spoken by newscasters and telenovela actors. The twins noticed that the woman was different from the other people in Painted Mesa as well, but phrased it somewhat differently.

“ _It’s Elsa from_ Frozen,” Marisol shouted, standing up on a bench to touch the woman’s long blonde hair.

“ _Do your ice magic for us, Elsa_!” Mateo demanded, while Marisol chanted, “ _Elsa_! _Elsa_!”

“ _Mateo_ , _Marisol, please_ ,” David said, pulling Marisol away from the stranger. “ _That’s not polite_. _Please excuse the children. They don’t mean to be rude_.”

“ _No, it’s quite alright_ ,” the woman said, even though she seemed unsettled by the rowdy behavior of the children. “ _So, can you help me_?”

“ _Of course_ ,” Betty said, guiding the woman back to the rows of washing machines, while David took the children back to the office. Betty explained how to do laundry in excruciating detail, while the woman took notes in a notebook with a large fountain pen.

“ _That woman seems weird_ ,” David observed, after he returned from the office and saw the stranger trying to load a washing machine, while looking at the notes she had taken.

“ _She's probably used to having bots do all her work for her_ ,” Betty said. “ _She can't help it; these days most white people have at least one_.”  

“ _Excuse me again,_ ” the woman said after the washer started running in earnest. “ _Do you know where I could stay for a while? I've been driving for almost three days._ ”

“ _Three days_?” Betty said. “ _Where did you start out_?”

The woman paused for a minute, and then said, “ _Sacramento_.”

“ _You drove all the way from Sacramento to here_?” David said. “ _What for_?”

“ _I'm looking for an artist by the name of Louis Porter for a job I need him to do_ ,” the woman answered.

“ _Are you from Sacramento_?” David said.

“ _No, that's just where I started my journey_ ,” the woman said somewhat evasively. “ _In any case, are there any hotels around_?”

“ _No,_ ” Betty said. “ _There is a motel nearby, but it's not exactly a family-friendly establishment, if you know what I mean_.”

“ _An hourly place, right_?” the woman sighed. “ _I know this probably sounds forward of me, but could I stay with you_? _I would be willing to pay you for my residency, which I anticipate should perhaps last for a year or so. In fact, I could pay you an entire years’ worth of rent in cash later today. You seem like family-friendly people, which is perfect, since I'm currently pregnant and without family support of my own._ ”

Without knowing it, the mystery woman had said the magic words needed to ingratiate herself in the eyes of her erstwhile hosts. The priest at the ramshackle church Betty and David attended often preached about the need to open one's home and heart to women in crisis pregnancy situations, a message that had made a big impression on them. And now, a pregnant woman in need had arrived before them, almost as if she had been sent there by a divine power. The fact that the couple already had a proverbial full house was no impediment to accepting a new boarder; Betty and David's lived with their two children, Betty's younger sister, Veronica, Veronica's son, Brian, and the two sisters' disabled father, Archie. Betty's best friend, Rosemary Comancho, didn't live at the house, but she was there so often, she might as well have. From the Rivases' perspective, adding 1.5 people to the house wouldn't alter the overall environment, especially since Carter planned to pay for her occupancy. Betty was a soft-hearted person, who believed in looking for the good in everyone and helping out as much as possible, and she considered the idea of letting a strange woman whom she had just met set up residence in her house to be simply a matter of “entertaining angels.” It also helped that this particular “angel” was willing to pay a year's worth of rent upfront in cash.

After walking Carter through the drying and folding process, Betty took Archie and the twins home to their trailer to prepare dinner, with the new addition following behind in her station wagon (David tended bar at night, when the laundromat doubled as a dive bar, and usually came home after closing time in the early morning). Betty wondered how Veronica would react to their new lodger, but convinced herself that her sister would approve of the idea when she learned of Ms. Carter’s tragic circumstances.

*

Veronica Ramos, the younger sister of Betty Rivas, had had a bad day. She was a waitress at the Pan-American House of Flapjacks, a position that most people looked down upon as “bot work,” menial positions that were ordinarily performed by bots and constituted the lowest rungs in the legitimate economy. The mostly white clientele of the Pan-American House of Flapjacks didn't let her forget that she doing “bot work,” and she was constantly bombarded with lewd comments, racist taunts, and religious hypocrites who thought that tipping with tracts rather than actual money was their Christian duty. Veronica often complained to the manager about the degrading work conditions she and the other waitresses were forced to endure, only to be informed that she should be thankful that an uneducated Mexican with a criminal record was getting any kind of work at all.

That very day, Veronica had stuck up for her co-worker and friend Rosemary Comancho, when a bunch of frat boys mocked her for being Navajo. Rosemary was the sort of person who was unable or unwilling to defend herself, but Veronica had told their attackers in no uncertain terms where they could stick their hash browns. The frat boys left the diner chastened, but not before they keyed racial epithets on her already battered car. So now Veronica was stuck with a car covered in disgusting slurs that she couldn't afford to fix just as it was time to pick up her six-year-old son Brian from his fancy private school, where the upper-class soccer moms would certainly talk. Sure enough, Veronica could hear the other mothers tsk tsking about her car and asking each other why it was okay for her to use such language to refer to herself, but completely off-limits for themselves. After being kicked around by gringos all day, the last thing Veronica wanted to come home to yet another white person, but that was exactly what happened when she saw Diana Carter standing in the middle of the living room.

“Who is that?” Veronica asked, staring in disbelief at the new arrival. Like David, Veronica thought that the woman seemed vaguely familiar, although she couldn't figure out why.

“Oh, that's Ms. Carter,” Betty said cheerfully. “We met her at the laundromat.”

“Why is she _here_?”

“She seemed kind of lost, and she said she's pregnant and has nowhere to go, and I couldn't just leave her by herself.”

Veronica looked over at the new addition, who was trying to set the series of card tables the Rivases used for meals with a box full of mismatched thrift store cutlery sets.

“Her?” Veronica said, looking at the woman intently. “She's the skinniest person in the room and totally not pregnant. I want her to take a test.”

“Her body type is probably the kind where she doesn't show much. I feel bad for Ms. Carter.”

“Why?”

“Um...I think she used to be a member of a group.”

“A group?”

“You know...some sort of fringe group away from society. She doesn't seem to have many practical skills. There are always a bunch of New Age white people wandering around in the desert, so maybe she escaped from one of those groups, although she did say she started out in Sacramento...”

“Do I even need to remind you what happened the last time you invited some random weirdo off the street here?”

“That was completely different.”

“He stole all the meat out of our fridge on Thanksgiving. What kind of person steals frozen meat of a stranger's fridge on Thanksgiving? Oh, I know who. The kind of people you keep bringing into our home.”

“I don't think Ms. Carter is like that,” Betty insisted. “She's going to be a mother.”

“A mother of what?”

“Of a child, silly.”

“Human or animal?”

“I don't know why you're being so ridiculous. Of course, a human child. She's pregnant.”

“Pregnant women commit crimes like everyone else,” Veronica said. “If anything, she's probably using her so-called pregnancy as a ruse for some kind of con. I met girls like that when I was in prison using their kids as decoys to screw unsuspecting people over. Of course, I don't think that woman is pregnant in the first place, so...”

“ _Excuse me_ ,” Carter said in her perfect Argentine Spanish. “ _I seem to have run out of cutlery_.”

Betty and Veronica examined Carter's handiwork, and it was apparent what the problem was; she was giving each place at the table a full set of tableware, which had caused her to run out of cutlery quickly.

“Well, you don't have to give each person so many forks and knives,” Betty offered. “One fork, one spoon, and one knife per person is enough. And it's okay to speak English if you prefer.”

Carter looked extremely confused, as if the thought that one could eat a meal with only one fork, one spoon, and one knife had never occurred to her (and indeed, it hadn't).

“ _I'll_ set the table,” Veronica said, rolling her eyes. “You can go stare at the wall or something.”

Carter sat down on the tattered couch, bewildered at her strange, new environment where people only ate with one of each eating utensil. Also sitting on the couch was Veronica's son, Brian, who was trying to work on a long division problem.

“Do you know how to work this, Ms. Carter?” Brian asked. “I'm usually pretty good at math, but long division is really confusing me.”

“Let me have a look at that,” Carter said, secretly glad that she was being confronted with a subject matter that actually made sense to her.

“Don't bother Ms. Carter with your questions,” Veronica said, as she put the mismatched silverware around the card tables. “I'll help you with long division after dinner.”

“It's no bother,” Carter said. “I have several degrees in mathematics.” Carter broke down the subject in such a way that Brian was able to not simply execute long division, but understand the underlying mechanics of the operation in question. It was a highly technical explanation that completely mystified Betty and Veronica, but seemed to make perfect sense to Brian. Although part of Veronica, who had never been very good at math or any other academic pursuit, was relieved that Carter had helped Brian get over his long division hump, part of her was jealous that an absolute stranger had been able to provide more homework assistance in five minutes than she had the entire school year.

"When do schools usually teach long division?" Carter asked, since she could recall doing the operation in question when she was younger than Brian.

"Around third grade, I guess," Veronica said. "I don't like to brag, but Brian skipped first and second grade, because he's so smart. Long division is just a stumbling block on the road to his future greatness."

"Not with Ms. Carter's help," Brian said, which caused Carter to beam and Veronica to scowl with jealousy.

As Carter finished her long division presentation, three girls ranging from five to eight, burst through the front door. Trailing behind the girls was a stout, pear-shaped woman with thick glasses carrying a little boy, who appeared to be two or three.

“I hope you don't mind that we came over for dinner,” the woman said. “The kids and I were in the area, and...”

“I've already set your place at the table, Rosemary,” Veronica said.

The woman identified as Rosemary sat on the couch next to Carter, still holding the little boy in her arms, and burst into tears.

“Are you still crying about what happened at the diner?” Veronica asked. “I’ve told you that you need to be more assertive with jerk customers…”

“No, it’s not that,” Rosemary wailed. “I went back to my trailer and James was there. I asked him to look after Ford and he actually agreed, but he was spanking Ford so hard and the poor baby was screaming so. I took Ford away from James and asked him why he was doing that, since he knows I don’t believe in spanking. He said he saw Ford playing with the girls’ dolls and he didn’t want his son being a sissy. So then I said that there was nothing wrong about a boy playing with dolls and maybe Ford is a two-spirit.”

“Ford isn’t anything; he’s practically a baby still,” Veronica said. “I think James is just projecting his own well-documented inadequacies on a defenseless child.”

“Anyway, we got into a dreadful argument and I told him to leave and never come back,” Rosemary continued. “The girls were so wonderful; they took Ford away to another room until I got James to leave.”

Rosemary began crying again, until she noticed Carter sitting next to her, and said, “Hey, did you know there's a white chick on your couch?”

“Yeah, Betty found her,” Veronica said, seemingly unable to believe it herself.

“Let me introduce you to Ms. Carter,” Betty said, hoping that Rosemary would be more accepting of her new acquaintance than Veronica. “Me and David met her at the laundromat, and she's going to be staying here for a while, since she's pregnant.”

“I'm Rosemary Comancho,” Rosemary said. “And these are my girls, Mercedes, eight, Porsche, seven, and Alexus, who's five. This little guy is Ford Mustang. He's almost three.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Carter said, as little Ford reached out to grab a fistful of her hair. “Did you intentionally name your children after car brands?”

“Yes,” Rosemary said. “Veronica said it's ghetto to name your kids after luxury brands, but I figured it would be the only chance I'd ever get to have a Mercedes or a Porsche. Don’t touch Ms. Carter’s hair, Ford. It’s not polite.”

“I wouldn't worry about it,” Carter said. “Mercedes, Porsche, and Alexus were all legitimate first names before they became brand names, though I don't think they were ever popular in the Anglophone sphere.”

“See, I told you they were classy,” Rosemary said to Veronica, who visibly scowled at the rebuke.

“My mommy's getting a divorce,” Mercedes announced.

“Well, good for her,” Carter said. “You don't seem too upset about it.”

“I don't really like daddy,” Mercedes said, putting down her book bag. “He's not nice and grandpa says he's a bum.”

“You're certainly a pistol,” Carter said. “I bet you beat up all the boys in school, don't you?”

“Yes!” Mercedes said proudly. “I'm smarter than all them, too.”

“You shouldn't really encourage her like that, Ms. Carter,” Betty said.

“The beating up the boys part or the being smarter than the boys?” Carter asked.

“It's okay to be smart, of course, but fighting's not a good thing,” Betty said. “Remember do unto others.”

“In my experience, it's better to do unto others before they do unto you,” Carter said once Betty was out of earshot, which caused Mercedes and the other girls to giggle.

“It's about time you divorced that loser, Rosemary” Veronica said, sitting down at the table. “Is it for real this time?”

“Yes, it's for real,” Rosemary replied in an annoyed voice that suggested that this wasn't the first time divorce had been a subject of conversation with her. “This time I'm really through. James won't stop smoking pot and won't get a job. Seeing how terrible he was to Ford made me realize that I can’t have him around anymore; he’ll probably give the children some kind of complex.”

“He was doing that when you met him,” Veronica said. “Why are you always expecting him to be doing something different?”

“I thought I could change him,” Rosemary said. “I told him he should get a job as a fry cook at the diner, but he said he wasn't going to waste his time doing bot work.”

“No one wants to do bot work,” Veronica said. “That's why bots exist in the first place. After the day I had, I certainly don't want to do bot work. A princess like you wouldn't know anything about bot work, would you Ms. Carter?”

“I'm quite knowledgeable about every aspect of bots, from bot CPU algorithms to bot sales patterns among the key demographics” Carter said triumphantly, proud to show that her knowledge base extended into all areas of life and thought.

“I'm not talking about the mechanics of bots, I mean bot _work_ ,” Veronica corrected her.

“Don't badger the guest, Veronica,” Betty said. “Try to be nice.”

Carter flashed a cocky half-grin, which made Veronica resent the new arrival even more, if such a thing was possible.

*

“This is a really interesting dish,” Carter observed, once the family and their guests sat down to dinner. “Is it some kind of ethnic Mexican recipe?”

“It's macaroni and cheese from the box,” Veronica said. The idea of not eating with a full cutlery set made Carter anxious, so Betty had given her some plastic forks, knives, and spoons to make up the difference, something that Veronica thought odd.

“Well, I've never had it before, so it's new to me.”

“They may not have macaroni and cheese where Ms. Carter is from,” Betty said, trying to defend her new acquaintance from petty accusations. Archie, who occupied the seat to Betty’s right, issued some guttural sounds that seemed to indicate that he was in agreement with his eldest daughter.

“What exactly are you?” Veronica asked.

“Viking,” Carter said, with complete seriousness.

“That's not a thing,” Veronica said. “There are no Vikings anymore.”

“It depends on how you define 'Viking,'” Carter said, putting some more of the neon orange macaroni on her fork.

“We shouldn't judge Ms. Carter for how she chooses to self-identify,” Betty said, not wanting to seem judgmental, and Rosemary nodded her head in agreement. Rosemary herself came from a world where people identified themselves by their tribal affiliations – Navajo, Hopi, Sioux, Cherokee, etc. – and as far as she was considered, Viking could simply be the name of a tribe in Europe.

“Yeah, I heard about these indigenous people who live way up in Scandinavia, and they have blond hair and blue eyes just like Ms. Carter,” Rosemary said.

Veronica thought Ms. Carter was taking them all for fools, but she remained silent, glaring at the new arrival suspiciously.

“So, what exactly do you do, Ms. Carter?” Betty asked.

“Pretty much whatever I want,” Carter replied breezily. “I'm what you might call independently wealthy. Since I'm going to be here for a while, I feel I should pull my weight, but I'm well aware that my domestic skills leave much to be desired. But I have other abilities that I believe can be of use to you. The décor in your home suggests that you're Catholic, am I correct?”

“Yes...” Betty said, wondering if Carter was going to try to convert them to the belief system of the “group” from which she had escaped.

“I'm quite skilled at Latin, which is the language of the Church. I also know ancient Greek, which is the language the New Testament. I can provide lessons in these languages and any other academic subject you might desire, free of charge, for you and your children.”

“Have you been to college?” Betty said.

“A bit,” Carter said coyly, which was a massive understatement.

“How much is a bit?” Betty pressed.

“My undergraduate and master's degrees were focused on mathematics, but I also have a law degree.”

“That's pretty impressive,” Betty said admiringly.

“Can you help me with long division?” Brian asked.

“That and a lot more,” Carter said.

Betty was immediately intrigued by the possibility that her new acquaintance could provide her children the edge they needed to succeed in the bot-driven economy. She knew the public schools in Painted Mesa were terrible and she couldn't afford to send the twins to Woodburn Academy, the private school where Brian was a student (Betty didn't understand how Veronica managed to afford it, but wisely didn't pry into the details). If Carter could provide addition instruction to the twins, perhaps it could make up for the lackluster teaching they were sure to get in the public schools.

Veronica, however, was less impressed by Carter's offer. Unlike the other members of her familial and social circle, who simply accepted at face value that the woman was a wayward stranger in need of assistance, Veronica noticed something that made her suspicious. Although the woman was dressed in a casual fashion, she looked more like a rich person trying to dress how she thought “ordinary people” did, rather than how a real “ordinary person” would dress. Veronica noticed that Carter's clothes contained the embossed LB symbol that was the symbol of the House of Lebec, meaning that she had spent more on that single outfit than Veronica made in an entire month. She wanted to ask Carter why she was in a place like Painted Mesa if she could afford to spend thousands of dollars on clothes, but decided to go with a more basic question.

“So where are you really from?” Veronica demanded.

Carter froze for a moment, and then replied, “Well, it's kind of a complicated matter.”

“How is that complicated?”

“Well, the truth of the matter is that my immigration status is a bit...irregular.”

“You're an illegal immigrant?” Veronica interjected.

“The phrase 'illegal immigrant' is so ugly,” Carter said. “I prefer to think of myself as simply being a liminal person. As to the question of where I'm from, that would be too complicated to explain, and that's part of the problem. My passport is from a certain European country. Which one isn't important. You could say I'm not really from anywhere, but I happen to be here at the moment. The situation is further complicated by the fact that I was deported when I was ten, meaning if I was deported again, I wouldn't be able to legally re-enter the United States for some time, which would not be helpful, given that I have a number of business interests here that command my attention.”

This vague non-explanation was enough for Betty, Rosemary, and the children, but Veronica remained suspicious about the stranger's motives and origin.

“So why are you _here_?” Veronica pressed.

“I'm looking for a certain Mr. Louis Porter to do a job for me, whom I've been told lives here,” Carter said.

“Yeah, he's lives around here, but I don't think he's going to be interested in helping you,” Veronica said.

“I feel confident that I can convince him,” Carter said, looking so smug that Veronica wanted to punch her in the face.

After thirty minutes of banal small talk, the older children left the table to work on homework, while the younger ones laid down for a quick siesta. With the children out of earshot, the conversation moved to more adult topics.

“So, is there a Mr. Carter in the picture?” Betty asked, wondering if she was prying too much with such a personal question.

“Yes, but we're currently apart at the moment,” Carter replied. “Not by choice, of course.”

“Is he in the military?”

“Not exactly. I kind of lost him.”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Betty said sympathetically.

“I don't mean that he's dead, he's just lost,” Carter corrected her.

“Like, lost at sea?” Rosemary asked.

“No, it's a difficult situation to explain...” Carter said, trying to think of how her marital situation could be explained in such a way that wouldn’t betray her real identity.

“It's not difficult to explain,” Veronica interjected, exasperated with Carter's vagueness. “He probably just went out for beer one day, never came home, and you're in denial about it.”

“Veronica!” Betty shouted in exasperation. Archie emitted some sort of grunt that seemed to be an attempt to register the same emotion.

“No, I don't mind talking about it,” Carter said. “The real problem between myself and Mr. Carter was society. Society just wasn't ready to handle so much sexiness. I realize now that just like all of the great lovers throughout history – Dido and Aeneas, Antony and Cleopatra, Pyramus and Thisbe, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Peter Abelard and Heloïse – society was just against us. Granted, only Cleopatra, Antony, Abelard, and Heloïse were real people in the historical sense, but that's not the point.”

“Why?” Veronica wanted to know. “Was Mr. Carter a different race?”

“I don't think so.”

“Different religion?”

“Not really.”

“Did he used to be a chick?”

“Veronica!” cried all the adults in unison.

“No,” Carter replied, unfazed by the intrusive question.

“Then I don't see why society would be against you and Mr. Carter,” Veronica said. “You just sound like every other boring-ass, white bread couple.”

“I told you, it's complicated,” Carter insisted. “It goes much further than societal archetypes and such. Another problem was his family. Or to be precise, his sister. She's the one who took him away from me, cock blocking my game, as the kids would say, ruining my happiness, and sending me into a downward spiral from which I've only recently recovered. Not only that, she destroyed my war monument, which is why I need to see Mr. Porter.”

“How old was this sister?” Veronica said.

“Eleven, I think,” Carter said.

“How could an eleven-year-old girl kidnap a grown man and destroy a statue or whatever?”

“Oh, it's very possible, believe me. Well, enough about my sordid affairs. Let’s talk business. I noticed you’re in the possession of a very nice piece of real estate. Can I have it?”

“What?” said Betty and Veronica simultaneously. Archie and Rosemary stared at Carter with mouths agape.

“I would pay you for it, of course,” Carter said. “I’m not asking you to just give me your business for free. In fact, I could pay you much more than it’s actually worth.”

“But what would we do about future income?” Betty said, trying to imagine how her family could live without a steady source of money.

“You could work for me,” Carter said. “I’ll need some staff to help me out, and you seem like hardworking people.”

“I would need to discuss this with David first,” Betty said.

“Certainly,” Carter said. “I know discussing money at the dinner table is a vulgar practice, but just to let you know, I’m offering you ten million dollars.”

Ten million dollars was nothing for the second richest person in the world, but everything for a family that was barely scraping by. Betty envisioned all the things she could do with ten million dollars: private school for the twins, music lessons, summer camp, a housing upgrade, a nurse bot to look after Archie, and a new car. However, Veronica was appalled at the idea of her family ceding their modest piece of the American dream to a woman they barely knew.

“We’re not selling,” Veronica said firmly. “The Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavanderia is owned by this family and it’s going to stay that way.”

“Yes, we are,” Betty said, reaching for her cell phone. “I’m going to call David and tell him to close up and come home before he gets robbed.”

“You can’t be serious,” Veronica protested.

“I’m completely serious,” Betty said, as she dialed the Rub-a-Dub Pub’s phone number. “My name is on the business license and the land permits, not yours Veronica, so I can sell the business to whoever I want.”

“What do you think, Rosemary?” Veronica asked, hoping her friend understood the principle that was involved.

“I wish I had something to sell for ten million dollars,” Rosemary lamented.

“Do you?” Carter asked.

“No,” Rosemary said. “All I own is my trailer and the land it sits on, but that’s on tribal land, so I don’t think I could sell it even if it was worth anything.”

“I don’t believe this,” Veronica shouted, feeling like the world had gone crazy and she was the only sane individual left.

“David agrees to sell too,” Betty said, after turning off her cell phone.

“Excellent,” Carter beamed. “We’ll work out all of the specifics later. I can assure you that I will be an asset to this household.”

“I’m sure you’ve had a hard day, Ms. Carter, what with all the driving you’ve done,” Betty said. “You’ll be sleeping in Veronica’s room, since all the other ones are full. Veronica, can you blow up an air mattress for her?”

“Why do I have to do it?” Veronica grumbled. “I don't even want her around.”

“She's a guest and she's in a... delicate condition. It would be impolite.”

“And it's not like Ms. Carter even knows how to set up an air mattress,” Veronica retorted. When she saw Betty about to chide her for her remark, Veronica said, “You know she doesn't. I'll go fill it up so I can be done with it.”

Veronica went to her modest bedroom, which only had enough space for her own bed and a small nightstand, and pulled the air mattress out of her closet. The idea of having to share her limited personal space with some random weirdo Betty met on the street infuriated Veronica, but she knew it was useless to try to argue; it was Betty and David's house and they had the right to choose who would and would not live there. She also knew that she was lucky that Betty let her live there at all, considering how most people would probably write someone like her off as a criminal and a bad influence.

As Veronica struggled with the air mattress, Carter entered the room, dragging her trunk and a number of smaller suitcases behind her.

“Since you don't seem to be using much of your closet space, do you mind if I take up some space?” Carter asked, although based on how she was taking out Veronica clothes and replacing them with her own, it seemed like less of a question and more of a statement of fact.

“Does it even matter?” Veronica grumbled. Veronica's immediate future seemed rough, indeed.

*

After Carter finished replacing Veronica's clothes with her own in the closet, she excused herself to the bathroom to take a brief sojourn from her deception. Of course, from Carter's perception, she wasn't deceiving any one at all; rather, she had simply decided to omit a number of superfluous details about her past that didn't concern her hosts or relate to her suitability to be a tenant in their house. True, the Rivas home was much smaller and more crowded than the lifestyle that she had become accustomed to, but it was clean, well-maintained, and the Rivases were falling all over themselves to not appear judgmental or nosy about her personal life. Carter thought Rosemary had far too many children for someone her age, but given own dubious track record in the realm of interpersonal relations, she was hardly in a position to criticize the other woman's life choices. Rosemary was at least trying to be a good mother, which was more than what could be said about the late Sophie LaFrenz. Veronica didn't like or trust Carter, but her venom was mild compared to what Dr. Hiss could dish out. All Carter had to do was to continue this charade for the next twenty odd years, and everything would work out great.

 


	3. Meanwhile, in Mega City: The Empty Chair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering, the chapel that Paradim visits in this chapter is real, as is the sedevacantist subculture within Roman Catholicism. Who says reading fanfiction isn't educational?

The Kübler-Ross Model posits five stages to grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Paradim had taken his protégé’s mysterious disappearance hard, and he had been suffering through an emotional roller coaster that he had never experienced before, not even when his parents or his wife had died. He kept cycling through denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, but when he was about to get to a place of acceptance, he found himself back at denial once again. Paradim knew that he could never accept that Lady Frenzy had left the Corp, had consciously decided to abandon everything they had built together. Ziv Zulander's defection hadn't even been this traumatic, because Paradim had always considered him to be an annoying man-child whom he had no interest in beyond what the young man could invent for the Corp. Lady Frenzy, on the other hand, was irreplaceable, a precious diamond that he himself had polished by hand. And now she was gone.

As Paradim watched the lesser denizens of RM City bustle around the massive complex from his penthouse office, he recalled a memory from his past that seemed oddly relevant to his current problem. Many years ago, when Paradim still had to network with the rich and useless for investment capital, he stumbled upon an obscure little Catholic chapel in Oyster Bay, New York. His mother was a lapsed Catholic and he had always had an interest in the pomp, ceremony, and mystical hierarchy surrounding the Roman Catholic Church, even if he considered its theology to be little more than outdated fairy tales. Upon entering the chapel and performing a perfunctory Sign of the Cross, Paradim had felt like he had been transported back to the 1950s, with women wearing elaborate lace mantilla, the men looking looking like Stepford-Ken doll husbands, and lots of stereotypical large Catholic families. The priest entered the sanctuary in the full regalia of cope, biretta, and chasuble. After the mass was over, Paradim had talked with some of the parishoners, whom he learned were members of a group of Catholic traditionalists known as sedevacantists, who not only rejected the Second Vatican Council, but also believed that there was no valid pope, despite copious evidence to the contrary.

“You see, Pope Paul VI couldn't have been a real pope,” an elderly man explained. “Because no real pope would create a heretical mass like the _Novus Ordo_ mass.”

“I see,” Paradim had replied, wondering what bizarre American subculture he had inadvertently stumbled upon.

“I think Paul VI was replaced by a Masonic imposter,” chimed an elderly woman, whom Paradim assumed was the man's wife. “The real Paul VI was imprisoned in the Vatican until he died, leaving the imposter to wreck the Church.”

“We're just keeping the True Faith pure until history vindicates us,” the priest said. “We're just like St. Athananius, battling the world and even the Church.”

“Of course, the problem really started with John XXIII,” the woman added.

“And the man whom 99.9 percent of the population believes to be pope...” Paradim started.

The little group had looked at Paradim with a mixture of pity and condescension, and the priest said, “Fr. Wojtyła prbably has... decent intentions, but he's clearly a modernist.”

“He's a dupe!” the elderly man said, gesticulating wildly. “An apostate!”

The priest began to list off the many supposed heresies of John Paul II, with helpful input from the elderly couple and several other individuals who had decided to join the conversation. After listening to the group drone on about how scandalized they were about the pontiff kissing the Quran, Paradim made a hasty retreat to the exit to rejoin the world of sanity. In the ensuing decades since his unexpected visit to the sedevacantist chapel, Paradim had thought little of the unusual group, until Lady Frenzy's sudden disappearance. The Board of Directors wanted him to find a replacement vice president for the Corp, or at the very least a temporary stand-in until Frenzy's whereabouts could be ascertained, but Paradim refused. Dr. Hiss in particular wanted a new vice president chosen, because he assumed that with Frenzy gone, he would be the logical first choice, even though Paradim had no intention of putting someone as reckless as Hiss in a decision-making capacity. Not that it mattered, since Paradim insisted that Frenzy was still vice president, despite her obvious absence. Much like how the sedevacantists were convinced that the Chair of St. Peter was vacant, the Board and Dr. Hiss had the erroneous opinion that the chair occupied by Frenzy was empty, even though Paradim knew that both seats were very much filled. Lady Frenzy would always be the vice president of the Corp, whether she wanted to be or not, and Paradim had every intention of finding her and restoring her to her rightful office.

With this in mind, Paradim turned his gaze away from the panoramic view of Mega City visible from his penthouse office suite, and looked at Dr. Hiss. He frowned a bit as he saw the chair where Frenzy used to literally sit at his right hand, and said, “I want no expense to be spared in the search for Frenzy.”

“Why?” Hiss grumbled. “If Frenzy wants to go run off with Zulander again, that's her business. I never trusted her in the first place.”

Paradim's yellow eyes flashed angrily at Hiss, and the scientist knew he had crossed a line. “First, I will not tolerate any kind of criticism of Frenzy in my presence,” Paradim said in a deceptively soft voice. “She has always been loyal to the Corp, and she single-highhandedly ended the Zulander War and got the Department of Justice off our backs. Secondly, there's no evidence that Frenzy is with Zulander. Our spies have seen Zulander out and about in Santa Marta alone. Given that Blitzy Zulander 'rescued' her brother when he was simply on a vacation with Frenzy, I have every reason to believe that she would never tolerate her being in her midst on a permanent basis. Zulander might want to know where Frenzy is, but I doubt he has any more knowledge than we do on the matter. Lastly, Frenzy has been invaluable to the rise of this company and she's too valuable to lose. Precocious tech nerds like Zulander are a dime a dozen, but a yen for business like Frenzy has is a rare commodity. I want Frenzy back at the Corp, unharmed, alive, and ready to resume her duties as executive vice president.”

“Yes, LLP,” Hiss said, affecting an appropriately obsequious demeanor. “Whatever you say, LLP.”

“You are dismissed, Hiss.”

Hiss got out of his chair and left Paradim's office, muttering obscenities under his breath. Once Hiss was gone, Paradim sat at his desk with a legal pad and pen, wondering where Frenzy might be and scribbling down plans to discover her. She had been missing for more than a month now, which had required him to file a missing person report. He had left out a number of details in the report, such as the fact that her legal name was Diana LaFrenz and that she was technically a British citizen, as he wanted to keep Diana LaFrenz and Lady Frenzy two separate entities. Paradim doubted that these omissions would hinder the search for her, as he was sure that Frenzy wouldn't be dumb enough to use her real name or divulge her true nationality.

Wanting to cover all his bases, Paradim decided to call Whigby Hall in the off chance Frenzy had returned there to resume life as Countess Diana LaFrenz.

“Whigby Hall, caretaker and head butler Ian Wolcott speaking,” an unfamiliar male voice said. “Please state your business.”

“Is Countess Diana LaFrenz available?” Paradim asked, as he doodled on his legal pad. “This is Sir Lewis Leon Paradim, and I have some business matters to discuss with her.”

“The Countess is not here at the moment, but I will be sure to pass your message along to her.”

“Have you seen her recently?”

“No, but I've talked to her on the phone quite a few times. I will let her know you called. Good day, sir.”

Paradim was convinced that he knew everything there was to know about Frenzy, but he didn't know that Ian Wolcott had been her childhood butler or that he was married to Frenzy's tutor/governess Ms. Schelling. If Paradim had known the background about the man on the other end of the phone, he might have pressed harder for information. In fact, Paradim was convinced that Mr. Wolcott was blowing sunshine up his proverbial skirt, but decided that even if the staff of Whigby Hall was aiding Frenzy in her deception, as he believed they were, they probably didn't know her exact location. This belief was solidified when he made similar calls to the corporate offices of the House of Lebec in Paris and LF Tech in London and got the same response; no, Countess Diana LaFrenz hadn't been seen in person, but she called frequently to check on the health of her business holdings, and there was no reason to suggest that anything was wrong with her.

After concluding his call to London, Paradim mulled over how the most famous woman in the world could remain hidden for more than a month without anyone noticing her. Still, he was certain that she could easily be found relatively soon, since she was far too flamboyant to remain undetected. Frenzy was used to an aristocratic lifestyle, and aristocrats attracted attention, whether from the press or from the public. Paradim was sure Frenzy would do something that would draw attention to herself, and once outed, she would have no choice but to return to the Corp.

*

As Paradim schemed how to bring his errant vice president back into the Corp fold, Ziv Zulander did weight training in his home gym, with Watzon acting as his coach and personal trainer. After spending several weeks in a state of suspended animation, Ziv's muscles had atrophied and he was intent on rebuilding his body back into fighting shape. With the Corp's war against him over, Ziv didn't really need to be as muscular as had once been, but he believed in the old adage of “health as wealth.” Perhaps more importantly, his strenuous exercise routine took his mind off of his domestic troubles.

After Ziv was finally awakened from his artificially induced slumber and Blitzy told him the full story of how his “rescue” had unfolded, he was unsurprisingly furious with his sister, an anger that had yet to dissipate. The two siblings had had a knockdown, drag-out fight that ended with them going to their respective rooms and slamming their doors, leaving the BOYZZ confused and upset. From Ziv's perspective, not only had Blitzy shown wanton disregard for the welfare of the human workers at Whigby Hall and destroyed a monument that he knew was of great sentimental importance to Diana, but she had also interfered in his personal affairs in an unacceptable manner and gotten the BOYZZ to support her in her machinations. While Ziv had initially invented the BOYZZ to alleviate his loneliness, he was beginning to feel trapped by their constant presence. Could the BOYZZ ever understand his desire to have a more conventional life with a wife, children, and a career that extended outside of the confines of his underground abode? They barely understood why he had wanted a girlfriend in the past, and Ziv felt that if he tried to explain his desire for biological children, the BOYZZ would simply point to Kiddie and ask why he didn't suffice. It was like they expected him to be sixteen or seventeen forever. As far as Blitzy and the BOYZZ were concerned, they should be the alpha and omega of his existence, whereas Ziv yearned for mature human relationships.

Adding to Ziv's anxieties was Diana's mysterious disappearance, and he worried that something terrible had happened to her, and she had died thinking he hated her. At first, Ziv feared that Paradim or Hiss might have harmed Diana in some way to get back at him, but after Swang recorded some clandestine conversations between the two men in which Paradim wailed about how Frenzy had left him after all he'd done for her, it was obvious that they didn't know where she was either. Ziv's current situation was complicated by the fact that he and Diana were still married on paper, at least, and he took those vows very seriously. He remembered how Diana once told him, “ _Like the god of the Hebrew Bible, I am jealous and angry. I want nothing less than absolute loyalty. Contrary to what you may believe, you've never seen me truly angry._ The thought of Diana's anger both frightened and turned Ziv on, and he resolved that he would never rest until he learned what happened to her.

“I think you've done enough for today, ZZ,” Watzon said, after Ziv completed his bench pressing. “I can tell your strength is returning.”

“Thanks Watzon,” Ziv said, as he grabbed a towel and wiped his sweaty forehead.

“Don't you think you should talk to Blitzy?”

“We talk all the time,” Ziv replied obstinately.

“I mean, about what transpired.”

“What exactly is there to talk about?”

“Everyone was worried about you.”

“There was no need to be worried. I wasn't being held against my will, and I wasn't being harmed.”

“Your judgement in this area hasn't always been the best.”

“You mean like how you and Cook tried to 'buy' Alicia from a catalog?”

Watzon was visibly taken aback from the stinging comment, and Ziv felt guilty for being so sharp with the doctor, especially when he had never explained the intricacies of human emotional development, socialization, or reproduction to any of the BOYZZ.

“I...I'm sorry, Watzon,” Ziv said. “I know you meant well, but...”

“No, you're right,” Watzon admitted. “There's a lot us BOYZZ don't know about human society. We're almost like a society unto ourselves. You want to be with humans like yourself. That's not an irrational desire.”

Ziv smiled wanly and said, “The Corp has been true to its word about not bothering us, so maybe I could go out some.” In truth, Ziv wasn't very optimistic about his ability to have a normal social life; he had gone to Santa Marta, a place that was comfortable and familiar to him, to test out how being a “normal person” might be like, and he had received an icy reception from the townsfolk, who regarded his marriage to Frenzy/Diana as a betrayal. Ziv still maintained that Diana LaFrenz was misunderstood, and the Lady Frenzy persona was a sort of front to avoid having to deal with her personal problems, but understood that most people, even those within his own household, didn't agree with him. As Ziv went to go shower off, he wondered where Diana was and how she was faring.


	4. Blue-Eyed Devil

The day after Diana Carter moved in with the Rivases, Veronica drove her to Mr. Porter's workshop during a brief window of free time she had before her afternoon shift at the diner. He lived about forty minutes away in an isolated patch of land festooned with garish abstract metal statues, old cars that had been turned into kinetic art installations, and large billboard style paintings of famous religious icons reimagined as African Americans. A larger sign in the front of the yard read, “PORTER AND SONS ART STUDIO, EST. 1995” and a smaller sign below that said, “ALL TRESSPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.” Veronica led Carter through the maze of art pieces to the front door of the house, which a well-maintained bungalow with solar panels on the roof, and knocked on the door. Carter could see someone peeping at them through the curtains.

“Who is it?” a voice demanded from behind the door.

“Veronica Ramos,” Veronica shouted. “And I brought you a client.”

Carter heard the sound of numerous locks and latches being undone, and the door opened to reveal a scowling African American man in his early sixties, sporting a white beard and a t-shirt that read “Fight the Power!”

“Who are you?” the man demanded.

“Diana Carter,” Carter replied. “I've come from California because I need your help.”

“Help for what?”

“I'm in the possession of a war monument. Or rather, I used to be. It was destroyed not too long ago by...vandals. I need someone to restore it back to the way it was, and I think you'd be the right person for the job.”

“What do you mean you 'own' a war monument? Monuments are public.”

“My family suffered a great deal of loss during World War I, and a monument was built on our estate to memorialize the fallen.”

“An estate?” the man asked sarcastically. “Are you some kind of royalty?”

“You could say that,” Carter replied, hoping the man wouldn’t pry into the details of her family background.”

“Well, your _highness_ ,” the man said. “Don't expect me to do any kind of work for you.”

“I think when see how much I'm willing you pay, you'd quickly change your mind...”

“Not interested,” the man interrupted brusquely. “I only do work the for African American community. For us, by us.”

“That's a commendable attitude, Mr. Porter – you are Mr. Porter, right?”

“Yes, I am,” the man now known to be Mr. Porter said.

“But given the natural restrictions of limiting your business to such a small segment of the market, I find it hard to believe that you've been able to maintain this lovely compound and workshop of yours entirely by doing commissions from within the African American community.”

“I've invested well in various businesses and properties, which leaves me free to work on my art,” Mr. Porter said. “I don't have any interest in doing business with blue-eyed devils.”

Veronica held her breath, waiting to see how Carter would respond. She expected Carter to be some combination of offended, outraged, or defensive, but instead she said, “I completely agree, Mr. Porter. However, I don’t think being a blue-eyed devil should prevent the two of us from developing a professional relationship.”

Neither the man nor Veronica expected this response, and Mr. Porter said somewhat sheepishly, “Really?”

“My various paternal relatives were officers in the British Navy, cogs in the largest colonial empire the world has ever seen. My maternal relatives include French missionary bishops. Real princes of the church in every sense, and believe me, they built the fiefdoms in Francophone Africa that were denied to them in the land of _liberté, égalité, fraternité_. To deny that I come from a long line of colonialists and imperialists would be foolishness of the highest order. Much, dare I say all of the disorder that occurred in the twentieth century was the result of the foolish actions of European colonialists and imperialists who carved up Africa and the Middle East in particular into arbitrary nation-state with borders that bore no resemblance to cultural or political situations of the people who actually lived in those areas. Both of you know well about your own country's history of slavery, racism, and genocide, aspects of your collective history that were spearheaded by individuals who had deluded themselves into thinking that their low levels of melanin somehow made them superior to those who had received greater blessings in that area. You see, this is the difference between me and your American neighbors of European extraction. I _know_ I'm a blue-eyed devil, while the average white American tends to have a grossly inflated view, not just of their supposed collective 'innocence' but of their talents and virtues as well.”

Both Veronica and Mr. Porter were stunned by this brief monologue, but it did the trick to convince the latter to reverse his negative opinion of Carter.

“I can see I misjudged you, Ms. Carter,” Mr. Porter said in a chastened voice. “You seem to be...different from what I expected. Please come in.”

Veronica and Carter entered the bungalow, which was one of those houses that seemed much larger on the inside than it did on the outside. The interior seemed to be a bizarre juxtaposition of vintage Negritude and Black Power posters combined with mid-twentieth century kitsch: avocado green refrigerator, orange shag carpet, and lava lamps. Carter also saw many bookcases that contained works by authors of whom she was intimately familiar: Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Goethe, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Mann, and many others. The three sat down at the kitchen table, which was covered with yellowed copies of _Jet_ magazine.

“Now, what brings you here, Ms. Carter?” Mr. Porter asked.

“As I mentioned, I have a war monument that needs to be repaired,” Carter reiterated. “I'm from very old money, aristocratic, to be precise, so we can afford to put up things on our private property that would be too costly for other kinds of people.” Carter felt odd referring to “we,” as if there were other LaFrenzes besides her in existence, but she reckoned that the proto-life currently residing in her constituted a quorum. “I brought the blueprints you'll need, as well as some photos of its current sad state.”

Carter pulled out some photographs the servants at Whigby Hall had taken of the ruined war monument from her purse. She hated looking at the pile of rubble that had once been the World War I memorial, an action that was akin to ripping a scab off her barely healed mental scars, but she knew it was necessary to impress on Mr. Porter why she had come to seek his assistance.

“What happened here?” Mr. Porter said, flipping through the photos with a sense of disbelief.

“The sister of Mr. Carter destroyed it,” Carter replied, trying hard not to think about the miserable punk who had ruined her love, her happiness, and her sanity.

“How could a kid do all this?”

“It's possible, but I don't want to get into the painful details.” Returning to her purse, Carter gave Mr. Porter the fragile blueprints, as well as some other photographs of the war monument in happier, less demolished times.

“It's fancy, alright,” Mr. Porter said, examining the blueprint.

“But can you fix it?” Carter pressed. “Make it look exactly the way it used to? I have other photographs of the soldiers upon which the statues were based.”

“Yeah, I can do it, but it'll take a while.”

“I don't care. Drop all of your other projects, if you have any, and work full-time on this. Money is no object.”

“Oh?” Mr. Porter's enthusiasm for the proposed project visibly increased upon hearing the phrase “money is no object.”

“For each statue you complete, I'll pay you $15 million. When the whole thing is finished, you’ll  get an additional $50 million.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Not at all. I said money was no object. Ever since this monument was destroyed, I haven't been able to have any peace. Each statue represents one of our bo – that is, one of my great-great uncles who were killed during World War I. It has a great deal of sentimental value for our family.”

“Respect for one's ancestors,” Mr. Porter nodded approvingly. “I can appreciate that.”

Mr. Porter then preceded to regale Carter with his tales of being a political radical. The long-since forgotten Veronica had already heard Mr. Porter's stories, which tended to be highly exaggerated accounts of real events at best and outright lies at worst, and stared blankly out the window. Carter was not well-versed in American history, since it was not a subject that was taught at Ms. Schelling's one-room schoolhouse, but she had enough common sense to know Mr. Porter couldn't have been old enough to have been involved in the tumult of the late 1960s, given that his medals on the wall for his service in the Persian Gulf War indicated that he had to have been born sometime in the mid to late 1960s, far too late to have been involved in the radical milieu for which he was claiming membership. However, Carter knew that people like Mr. Porter really just wanted an audience to listen to them and take their experiences (real or imagined) seriously, so she listened intently to his tall tales and acted like they were the most interesting stories she had ever heard.

After he was done with his fanciful account, Mr. Porter told Carter the real story of his life. “When I was a kid, I went to this real fancy prep school in New England. Full of Cabots, Lodges, those kinds of people, the ones that are so powerful, you never even hear about them. I studied the classics, played lacrosse, and wore a suit and tie. Obviously, I wasn't wearing the suit while I was playing lacrosse, but you get the point. I don't mind telling you, Ms. Carter that I was the top student.”

“Of course,” Carter said, nodding.

“But as usual, I was surrounded by haters. Haters who couldn't take all this chocolate awesomeness. They subjected me to microaggressions, bullying, gossiping, all to cut me down and put me in my 'place.' As if someone like me has a place. That simply made me want to be even better. And you know why? Because I had will to power, just like Friedrich Nietzsche said.”

“Yes,” Carter said, thinking of her own days as a child prodigy at Oxford, a young girl in a mathematics department dominated by men with inflated egos, and then as a woman in the male-dominated business world.

“I don't think Nietzsche intended for people like us to have will to power,” Mr. Porter said. “You, me, Veronica, none of us, but the Promethean impulse can't be denied, regardless of the form the individual human takes.”

The more Carter heard Mr. Porter speak, the more she liked his style, while Veronica was upset that the two were engaged in a conversation that completely excluded her.

“In any case, I was the valedictorian of the school, and I could have gone anywhere for college. For whatever reason, I decided to go to West Point, even though the armed forces are by definition characterized by a herd mentality. But at the time, I liked the idea of structure and saw it as a good stepping stone to other opportunities. Conveniently for me, I graduated just in time to see action in the Persian Gulf War. I won't get into the details, but whoever said 'war is hell' didn't know the half of it. The state of the army didn't help, since it was just like being at school all over again, with the microaggressions and naked hostility. But I did my service and got duly awarded for it, although I decided that an extended career in the military wasn't for me. Instead, I went back to school and got a master's in civil engineering, and did that as my 'real job,' while I learned sculpting. Eventually, my skills as an artist were such that I didn't need to bother with having a 'real job.' Of course, the fact that I bought up a bunch of Corp stock in the early 2000s has helped a lot too.”

The unexpected mention of the Corp shocked Carter, and her usually unreadable face registered a look of shock. Mr. Porter noticed her reaction, and gave his own interpretation of it.

“No, I think everyone should invest,” Carter said, hoping the already suspicious Veronica hadn't noticed her flinch. “All power to the investors. I'm just surprised that you would have so much stock in a company that is regarded as being the most 'Establishment' of corporations.”

“When I bought the stock, the Corp was a fringe company, but even back then I could see that robotics would be the wave of the future. I also invested in some other Internet companies, but sold the stock before they all tanked; start-ups back then were so fickle, but I'm sure you know all about economics and other dismal sciences, right Ms. Carter?”

“Quite a bit,” Carter said, glancing at Veronica, who flipping through an old issue of _Jet_ magazine.

“Well, that's enough about me,” Mr. Porter said. “What about you?”

Before Carter could think up a convincing excuse to not talk about her past, the front door opened, revealing a grey-eyed woman with café au lait skin that she assumed was the current Mrs. Porter.

“Who is _that_?” the woman said, looking at Carter like she had or was about to steal something.

“This is Diana Carter, Denise” Mr. Porter said. “I'm going to be doing a major job for her. Ms. Carter, let me introduce you to my wife, Denise.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Porter,” Diana said, holding out her hand.

Denise shook Carter's hand, all while giving her some very dirty looks.

“Where are _you_ from?” she asked.

Carter had to say something to convince Denise that she wasn't some strumpet off the streets trying to break up her happy home, and said, “My passport indicates that I have citizenship in a certain European nation. Exactly which one isn't important. Due to the extreme irresponsibility of my parents, I was deposited in this country when I was baby, which the United States government claimed to make me what is so vulgarly called an illegal immigrant, an absurd notion in this age of the World Presidency. I was deported for a time as a child, but then returned to this country for educational and business purposes. That was almost ten years ago, but now the United States government is complaining that I'm here on an expired student visa. Consequently, I married Mr. Carter so I could stay in this country legally. Veronica here has claimed that the union between Mr. Carter and myself was suspect because it was precipitated by my citizenship woes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, I would have married Mr. Carter much earlier, were it not for various societal forces conspiring against us, and it's those same forces that forced our involuntary separation. And by 'various societal forces,' I'm mostly referring to his younger sister, but I would be lying if I didn't say that the individuals in my previous social circle were not supportive of Mr. Carter and myself.”

“After Mr. Carter's sister so cruelly destroyed my family's war monument and spirited Mr. Carter himself away – against his wishes, I might add – I suffered from a personal crisis,” Carter continued. “It was during this crisis that I discovered that I was pregnant. The previously mentioned social circle was even less supportive of this than the initial marriage, and so in the fine tradition of American reinvention, I left to pursue life, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of society's arbitrary dictates.”

“That's beautiful,” Mr. Porter said, while Denise and Veronica appeared to unimpressed with Carter's embrace of the American way of self-fashioning.

“What do you mean when you say you had a 'personal crisis'?” Denise said.

“After the destruction of my war monument and Mr. Carter's cruel and completely unnecessary kidnapping, I suffered what is commonly referred to as a nervous breakdown, even though no such diagnosis exists in the medical literature. Someone in my previous social circle erroneously alleged that the suicide attempt I made in the aftermath of Mr. Carter’s kidnapping was merely a cry for help, when it was simply poorly executed.”

“You tried to kill yourself some dude?” Denise said, her voice and odd mixture of disdain and mirth. “There's billions of dudes out there.”

“I did not go crazy over a guy,” Carter insisted, even as she thought to herself, _Did I really try to kill myself over a guy_? She put the thought out of her mind and said, “I was upset about the monument. That was the real problem. In any case, if you were to ever find Mr. Porter and myself in a compromising position – which would never happen, of course, but I'm just laying out a hypothetical situation – you have my preemptive permission to shoot me. I’m like Penelope in _The Odyssey_ , remaining chaste until I can find Mr. Carter”

“You do know that Odysseus was fooling around with Circe and Calypso while Penelope stayed at home, right?” Denise said. Carter flinched uncharacteristically at the rebuke; unlike the Rivases, Denise knew her classics and could easily come up with a counterpoint that would challenge her own references. She glanced at the wall opposite to her and saw a framed diploma from Harvard indicating that Denise Porter held a PhD in classics.

“Listen, Denise,” Mr. Porter said. “Ms. Carter said she would pay me $95 million for her project. I'm not passing this job up.”

“Let's just round it up to $100 million for an even number,” Carter said. “I'll give you $5 million upfront as a sign of the seriousness of my intent.”

“Seriously?” Denise said, still doubtful of Carter's motives. “Are you a drug dealer or something?”

“No, I'm from old money,” Carter said, who decided that that would be the best explanation for why she had so much money to burn, even though it was her decidedly modern business dealings that were responsible for the bulk of her wealth. “Aristocratic money. Drug dealing is too minor for someone of my standing. Most drug dealers live with their mothers or grandmothers, you know.”

“Who’s your mother?” Denise demanded.

“Some white chick,” Carter said with a straight face.

“Who’s your father?”

“Some white guy.”

Denise looked like she didn't know what to think about the weird white woman sitting in her kitchen, but said, “Well, you always do what you want in the end, Lou. We're already rich, so I don't see why you're acting like we're hard up for money.”

“There's rich and then there's rich,” Mr. Porter said. “With the money from this job, the boys and the grands would be set for life.”

“What happened to 'by us, for us'?”

“I don't know if you've noticed, but most of 'us' don't have this kind of money. And those who do never want to invest in the fine arts. It's a disgrace.”

“If you say so,” Denise said, still suspicious of Carter. Suddenly realizing that Veronica was also present, Denise said, “Why're you here, Veronica?”

“Ms. Carter moved into our house,” Veronica said. “Betty found her wandering around, and invited her.”

“Yeah, that sounds like something Betty would do,” Denise laughed, as she pulled out one of the vintage _Jet_ magazines to read. “Make sure you watch your freezer.”

“You know I am,” Veronica said, glancing at another _Jet_ from 1955 that claimed to have the “truth” about Father Divine's death.

“How do you two know Veronica?” Carter said.

“Veronica dates our youngest son, Amir,” Denise said. “We've got four boys and they all work in our businesses. Khalil and Bilal work with their father in the sculpting workshop, Hamza looks after our various real estate properties, and Amir runs a t-shirt business. I look after the financial end of things. Plus, our grands go to school at Woodburn with Brian. You could say we have a compound here, since each son has a house and various outbuildings for their work.”

“An industrious and intellectual family,” Carter said, getting up to leave. “I admire that. Well, we've spent enough of your time. You can look for your first check in the mail later this week, and I'll leave the blueprints and the photos here with you. Also, can you tell Amir to make me seven t-shirts that say 'Blue-Eyed Devil'? I want one for every day of the week.”

“Nice doing business with you, Ms. Carter,” Mr. Porter said, shaking her hand.

“I should be the one thanking you, Mr. Porter, for providing me assistance during my hour of need,” Carter said, and stuck a $100 bill in his hand. Veronica looked at the scene and shook her head in disgust, before going out to start the car.

*

_October 30, 2026_

_I feel more hopeful today than I have since the Tragedy. Mr. Porter has agreed to work on the war monument. It was a hard sell at first, because he professes not to like white people, but as usual, I was able to make my will a reality (I don’t think I like white people either, to be honest. Familiarity leading to contempt and all that). Everything is falling into place, both professionally and personally..._

“We had such a productive day,” Carter said to Veronica, as finished up her journal entry and prepared for bed. “It's so nice to see that Mr. Porter is the sort of man who appreciates art and culture. I can see I made the right decision in choosing him to rebuilt the war monument.”

“No, _you_ had a productive day,” Veronica said. “I was just there. I needed to work on my job.”

“I thought you said you had time off.”

“Yeah I had time off from the diner, but being out with you cut into my side job.”

“Which is...?”

“None of your business,” Veronica snapped, which led Carter to believe that her unwilling roommate had some secrets of her own.

“If you want, I could reimburse you for the time you lost,” Carter said. “Not to mention I could get you a new car. You know, your current one is covered with racial slurs.”

“I don't want your money,” Veronica said. “I’m going to scrape all the paint off it on the weekend and then get Amir to repaint it. You think you can just come in here and throw cash around and get everyone to do want you want, right?”

“Of course,” Carter said with the utmost seriousness. “That's the way the world works.”

“Well, you're not going to buy me off,” Veronica said, violently fluffing her pillow to make her point. “I don't need your money to do anything.”

“Suit yourself,” Carter said, turning away from Veronica to lie down on the air mattress. “But money is a beautiful thing.”

Veronica got up to turn off the lights and tried to make sense of the trajectory her life was taking. She wasn't surprised that Betty, David, and Rosemary would be taken with Carter, because they were the sort of people who would trust anyone who wasn't openly affiliated with a gang or a drug cartel, but she had at least expected Mr. Porter to put Carter in her place. Veronica had hoped that Carter would run away crying or distraught once Mr. Porter did his usual faux-60s radical routine, but to her amazement, Carter instead had the grizzled artist completely charmed. It was as if the rules that had previously governed her existence were being thrown out the window, and now there was nothing but anarchy.

_How does Carter do it?_ Veronica thought, as she nodded off to sleep.

 


	5. Meanwhile, In Mega City: Of Sibling Bondage/the Psycho Friends Network

“Thanks for your help, Dr. Ziv.”

“Don't worry. It was my pleasure.”

“See you tomorrow, professor.”

Ziv put his papers into his briefcase, locked his office, and walked down the long, institutional corridors of Santa Marta Community Technical College, where he now worked as an adjunct professor under the name Andrew Ziv. He didn't think he was fooling anyone with the pseudonym, but he didn't want to take any chances, since the name Ziv Zulander was practically mud in Santa Marta.

After recovering from his month in suspended animation, Ziv was eager to rejoin society as a free man. The problem was that society, as defined by his former neighbors in Santa Marta, was not interested in welcoming him back. Once considered a local Robin Hood for saving the town from a hostile takeover by the Corp, Ziv was now seen as a quisling, a sell-out, and a fraud. That the Zulanders had engaged in what many would consider terrorism was a minor concern for the denizens of Santa Marta. What really offended them was that Ziv had married a woman they considered to be worse than Hitler. Thus, Ziv was able to re-enter society with a clean legal record, but the way he had to obtain that blank slate had alienated him from the very community to which he wanted to belong. The easiest thing for Ziv to do would have been to move to a big city in a different state and create a new life for himself, but he stubbornly insisted that he had just as much a right to live in Santa Marta as anyone else.

Because of the abrupt circumstances surrounding their last meeting, Diana had never finalized the research position she promised Ziv at LF Tech. But Ziv still wanted to work and mingle in adult human society, so he took a decidedly unglamorous and underpaid position as an adjunct at the local technical-vocational college. Yet, his humble position came with a number of benefits. The student body at Santa Marta Tech tended to be focused on gaining practical skills, and didn't molest him. If he was recognized as the infamous Ziv Zulander, no one mentioned it to his face. Santa Marta Tech was also within commuting distance of his underground home, which meant he could be a part of the Santa Marta community (to the extent his neighbors allowed, anyway), while still attending to the needs of the BOYZZ. Perhaps most importantly, Ziv liked spreading his enthusiasm for science and technology to others, and enjoyed the feeling that he was helping people.

Ziv met up with Twigg, who was disguised as an ordinary car, in the college's parking lot.

“Good day at work, buddy?” Twigg asked, as Ziv unlocked his doors.

“Very good,” Ziv said. “The students are making real progress. And some of the other teachers actually talked to me.”

“Really?”

“Well, it's still mostly just 'hello' and 'how are you,' but it's a start.”

Ziv and Twigg talked amicably about the former's work day, until they reached Blitzy's school. The ire of the directed at Ziv by the people of Santa Marta extended to Blitzy, a situation she thought most unfair, given that she was the individual most opposed to his marriage to Frenzy. Ziv enrolled Blitzy in a private school in the neighboring town of San Vicente, where the Zulander name was less notorious. He had chosen one of those progressive schools where the students called the teachers by their first names and everyone lounged around on beanbag chairs, assuming that an institution that claimed to celebrate eccentricity would be more accepting of Blitzy. However, Blitzy was convinced that she could ever be “normal” again, even among the self-consciously unconventional.

“Hi, Blitz. How are you?” Ziv said cheerfully, as Blitzy sat next to him in Twigg's interior.

“Fine,” Blitzy mumbled.

“How was school?”

“Fine.”

“What do want for dinner?”

“Whatever.”

“Is there any possibility of you answering me with anything more than a monosyllabic word?”

Blitzy responded by shrugging her shoulders insouciantly.

“Can we just talk for once like normal people?” Ziv shouted, unable to hide his frustration any longer.

“Don't you get it ZZ?” Blitzy fumed. “We're not normal people. We've probably never been normal people. I hate school. I hate everything. No one understand me or what I've been through, but I'm just supposed to talk about who likes who and all the other pointless middle school drama.”

“Do you want to talk to someone?” Ziv asked, relieved that the source of Blitzy's current woes wasn't related to “that woman.”

“Who would I talk to? The clueless school conselor? The other kids? The stupid teachers? No one understands.”

“I understand. You were the only person – the only _human_ person, anyway – I had during our fight with the Corp. As for hating school, I understand that perfect. I never had any friends when I was young; I was always the weird genius kid that no one wanted to hang out with. I was in college with people who were twice my age who looked down on me. That's why I invented the BOYZZ in the first place, because I never had any human friends.” Ziv thought he was relating these past events in a matter of fact tone, but Blitzy heard the palpable bitterness in his voice. She was glad they were driving in Twigg, because the way the car was swerving, she questioned whether Ziv had his mind on the road.

“But that's part of the problem too. Even if I had friends, I couldn't invite them over. I mean, what would they think about the BOYZZ? It's not that I don't love them, of course, but...they really aren't socialized to be around any humans but us, and the idea of 'thinking bots' in general is too out there for a lot of people. Would I even be allowed to have friends over or are we still in full-on security control mode?”

Ziv wondered what Twigg was thinking about the trajectory the conversation was taking. He didn't want to hurt the BOYZZ's feelings, but he had often had the same thoughts Blitzy did about the general chaos that reined in their underground home. Ziv simply said, “Well, the Corp has honored its part of the truce, but I think to be safe, we need to stay in the bomb shelter for the foreseeable future. But I'm positive you can make friends. You've always been so social, much more so than me.”

“I don't feel like it these days,” Blitzy said.

“Even if our war with the Corp hadn't happened, you'd still be going through a transitional period, moving from elementary school to middle school with all that entails. Maybe the other kids won't understand what happened over the past eighteen months, but they might understand what you're going through right now.”

“I guess that's true,” Blitzy admitted.

“You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah, I know. Just keep your eyes on the road.”

Twigg, the unwilling third party to Ziv and Blitzy's conversation, remained silent, but felt a sense of relief. He didn't claim to have a full understanding of human society or human nature, but he did know that the Zulander siblings were finally talking in complete sentences to each other, and that would be a welcome development for everyone at the underground house under the meadow.

*

Paradim usually prided himself on his rational, calculating nature, and under ordinary circumstances would never consider patronizing the services of a self-proclaimed psychic. However, desperate times called for desperate measures. Diana had been gone for almost six months, and he needed her back at the Corp as Lady Frenzy. Django Zola was the most famous and exclusive “psychic” in the world, and his services were enjoyed by movie stars and prime ministers alike. Zola looked at bit like Dr. Hiss before he went full-on cyborg: short, olive skin, and darkly handsome, with a jaunty pencil mustache that gave him an appealing, rakish look.

“Why exactly do you request my services, Sir Paradim?” Zola asked in an accent that Paradim couldn't quite place. He wondered if Zola's accent was real or if he was just some faker from some Midwest backwater who was affecting a Continental persona as a selling point.

“Before we go any further, I need to ask you whether you signed the nondisclosure agreement.”

“Of course, Sir Paradim. I spend over an hour this morning with your lawyers ensuring that whatever happens in our session stays in our session.”

“Good. With that out of the way, we can get down to business. There's only one thing that I want to know and if you can provide the information I need, you'll be richly compensated.”

“And that is...?”

“Where is Lady Frenzy?”

“Of course, I should have known,” Zola said, smiling knowingly. “Certainly, you would want to find out where your girlfriend is.”

“Excuse me?” Paradim said, his eyes becoming narrow and dangerous, like those of a panther about to attack its prey.

“Certainly any red-blooded man would want to keep such a fine specimen of woman around as long as possible...” Zola prattled, unaware of the grievous mistake he had made.

“First of all, Lady Frenzy is not a 'specimen,'” Paradim interrupted. “Secondly, Frenzy and I have never been involved sexually, contrary to what your gutter mind might think. If you can't even get such a basic detail about her life right, then I have no reason to think that your so-called 'powers' will be of any use to me.”

“But...” Zola stammered, seeing his easy money disappearing before his eyes.

“If you have any notion of self-preservation, you'll get out of my sight before I throw you out this window.”

Zola scurried out of Paradim's office like a frightened puppy. Once the “psychic” was gone, Paradim sighed and looked out his window, with RM Corp City spread out in front of him. He regretted losing his temper at such an insignificant person, and regretted even more than he had wasted even a minute of his valuable time with an obvious fraud; if there was anything to Zola's “powers,” he'd be working at the CIA or NSA, not hanging around the fringes of Randall Krandall's entourage. Now Paradim was back to square one in his search for Diana, with no credible leads or clues as to her current whereabouts. However, if Paradim's calculations were correct, Diana's due date was coming up soon, and he was sure that would convince her to return. He found it unlikely that someone as aristocratic as Diana was would be able to handle caring for a baby, and she would have to come back to him and admit her failure. Unloading the baby would be easy, since there was no shortage of rich yuppie scum wanting to adopt a healthy white infant, and then everything would go back to normal for Paradim, Lady Frenzy, and the Corp.


	6. Chapter 6

_November 14, 2026_

_Within a few short weeks, my knowledge of the practical arts has grown exponentially. Well, maybe not exponentially, but I feel much more capable than I was before I arrived in Painted Mesa. Domestic tasks may be tedious, but they’re quite doable; I don’t know why LLP thought that I was incapable of learning such things, when even children can do chores and make simple meals…_

With the future of the Whigby Hall war monument in good hands, Carter decided to focus her energies in learning how to be a “normal person.” Carter's complete inability to perform the most minor domestic tasks brought out Betty and Rosemary's maternal instincts, and they tried to help her learn the basic life skills that none of the adults in her life had ever bothered to teach her: how to shop in a grocery store, how to cook, how to charge your own car at the electric charging station, and how to look after children. Carter showed little proficiency in these areas at first, but was convinced that she could easily conquer the world of home economics if she put her mind to it, and made slow and steady progress. She felt a strange sort of pleasure when she successfully made her first omelets, since Carter was certain that no one in her extended family tree had ever made their own breakfast.

“They’re pretty good for your first try,” Betty said, as she took a bite out of the omelet Carter had made for her. Carter’s creations were actually burnt on the outside and runny on the inside, but Betty kept these thoughts to herself and focused on what her new acquaintance had done correctly, much like she did when dealing with her pre-school aged children’s attempts to be helpful.

“Thank you,” Carter said, barely able to contain her pride. “I think the quality was enhanced by the artisanal cheese I bought. It’s handmade by Belgian monks.”

“You know we really can’t afford the very expensive cheese, Ms. Carter…” Betty said. She didn’t want to sound like a scold, but the Rivases were not in a financial position where they could spend twenty dollars on a small block of cheese. Betty wasn’t even sure where Carter had managed to find Belgian cheese, since she could never recall ever seeing such a thing when she went shopping.

“I wasn’t paying attention to the price,” Carter admitted. “I just saw what I wanted and bought it. However, if money is a concern, here’s fifty dollars: twenty for the cheese itself and an extra thirty for your trouble.”

Betty was shocked that Carter could give her fifty dollars in such a casual manner, but then remembered that her boarder was “independently wealthy.” At first, Betty considered refusing the money just to be modest, but there was a lot she could do with fifty dollars, and Carter was so earnest that she felt she had no choice but to accept the monetary offering.

Carter’s excitement over her growing self-sufficiency was such that she didn't even mind when people stared at her in the grocery store or on the street. She was accustomed to people looking at her for a variety of reasons, and as long as everyone left her alone, she was content to let them watch her. Carter made a point of always speaking in Spanish when she was out on the streets, so she would be regarded by the other denizens of Painted Mesa as a fellow Hispanic, albeit one with very Nordic heritage.

“ _Look at that_ blanquita,” said a man who was loitering at the liquor store near the electric charging station where Carter was refueling her car. “ _That’s not standard equipment around here, that’s for sure_.”

“ _What’s a hot piece like that doing around here_?” another wino said. “ _I could get used to looking at that_.”

“ _Word on the street is that Betty Rivas found her and invited her to live with her_ ,” the first man said. “ _How come no hot_ blanquitas _ever wanna come home with me_?”

“ _For starters_ , _you ain’t got no home_ ,” the second man reminded him. The men continued ogling Carter until she finished charging her car and drove away. Carter knew that the men had been gawking at her, and understood every word they said, but decided there was no need to confront them as long as they looked and didn’t touch.   

In exchange for their tutelage on practical matters, Carter helped her new friends with the areas of knowledge in which she could claim proficiency, namely academics. As she had promised on her first day in Painted Mesa, Carter conducted nightly classes in Latin for Betty, David, and Rosemary using the Vulgate Bible as a reference text. The older children, Brian, Mercedes, and Porsche, also sat in on the classes, though the girls seemed more interested in Latin as a way to have a secret language known only to themselves, rather than as a tool to understand Seneca or Aquinas. Regardless of their motives, Mercedes and Porsche were obedient and dutiful in their studies, and Carter didn't mind their presence. Veronica was also a member of the class, not because she had any real interest in Latin, but because she didn't want Brian to think she was stupid.

“Now recall the mnemonic devices we went over last week,” Carter said. “Who can finish this? Common are to either sex...”

“ _Artifex_ and _opifex_ ,” Rosemary said, without raising her hand.

“ _Conviva, vates, advena,_

_Testis, civis, incola,_

_Parens, sacerdos, custos, vindex,_

_Adolescens, infans, index._ ”

“Very good,” Carter said, and Mercedes and Porsche gave their mother high-fives in appreciation. “And the rest?”

“ _Judex, heres, comes, dux,_

_Princeps, municeps, conjux,_

_Obses, ales, interpres,_

_Auctor, exul;_ and with these,

_Bos, dama, talpa, tigris, grus,_

_Cavis_ and _anguis, serpens, sus_ ,” Rosemary said.

“I think you'll find if you memorize these sorts of mnemonic devices that remembering the genders of all the nouns will be much easier,” Carter told the class. “This is particularly true in the nouns of the third declension, whose genders are often difficult to ascertain simply by looking at the endings. For the next class, study the verbs of the first and second conjunction in the indicative.”

Veronica got up from her place on the couch, relieved that the class was finally over, her head foggy from all this talk about declensions, conjunction, and moods. Academics had never been Veronica's forte, and the Latin class only underscored the huge gaps in her knowledge base. Betty and David had been to community college and Rosemary had a high school diploma, whereas Veronica's formal education had ended in ninth grade.

“I'm surprised that Rosemary is turning out to be the best student in the class,” Carter said, as she picked up her class notes and well-loved copy of _Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar._

“Rosemary already knows English, Spanish, and Navajo, so I'm not surprised she would do well learning a fourth language,” Betty said. “She's always had a fascination with language and literature.”

“Interesting,” Carter said, with a thoughtful look on her face. Her musings were interrupted when Brian approached her with a grammatical question.

“Ms. Carter, can you explain the difference between the nominative and the vocative case?” Brian asked.

“Certainly,” Carter said. “The nominative case corresponds to what is commonly referred to in the English language as the subject of a sentence, while the vocative case is used to directly address or invoke a person or thing.”

“I see,” Brian said.

“Your mother told me you’re learning German in school, right?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Then you know that German has a nominative case like Latin, although there's no vocative.”

Watching Brian chat animatedly with Carter about the intricacies of Latin grammar inflamed Veronica's already intense feelings of jealousy towards the other woman. She knew that learning Latin was the kind of thing that would give Brian an edge over his peers at school, but all she could think of was how Carter was making her look bad in front of her son. All Veronica ever heard from Brian these days was how smart Ms. Carter was, how pretty Ms. Carter was, how polite Ms. Carter was, how generous Ms. Carter was, etc. Carter might be confused about the mechanics involved in boiling water or navigating a grocery store, but she was brilliant in the aspects of life that mattered most to Brian's future.

Veronica had already known she was pregnant when she was arrested for being the unknowing getaway driver for a liquor store robbery that two of her loser girlfriends had decided to commit without telling her. When it was time for Veronica to give birth, the blessed event happened in a dingy hospital unit of the New Mexico Correctional Institute for Women, where all four foot ten inches of her was shackled to a rusty bed, lest she run away in the middle of labor. Brian's birth had been the most traumatic event of her life, not because she regretted having him or because her labor was particularly difficult, but because of the dehumanizing circumstances she had to endure in the hospital unit, and because the authorities ripped him ripped away from her seconds after his arrival, without even allowing her to have so much as a glance at her new baby. Fortunately for both mother and baby, Betty had been willing to look after Brian while Veronica was in prison, even though she was already taking care of Archie, working two jobs, and going to classes at Painted Mesa Community College where she would eventually meet David. While Veronica was grateful that Betty had stepped in to prevent Brian from going to foster care, the entire situation only underscored how she was the “bad” Ramos sister, and Betty was the “good” Ramos sister.

During her prison stay, Veronica researched child development and different educational philosophies so she could the best mother possible once she was released. She sent her findings to Betty via snail mail, with missives about how Brian should be raised: read to him every night, limit screen time, allow him to ask questions, expose him to colors, shapes, and numbers. Every now and then, Betty would visit the prison with Brian, though it was difficult interact with a baby with a plate glass window between them. After languishing for three and half years behind bars, the state of New Mexico decided that since Veronica had no prior knowledge that her companions were going to rob the liquor store that she had been wrongfully imprisoned. Of course, no one in the legal justice system was willing to admit that a mistake had been made and she was still considered a felon, but at least Veronica had been granted her freedom.

Once Veronica returned home, she expected to be met by a temperamental but loving toddler in the throes of the “terrible twos.” Instead, she was greeted by an old man inhabiting the body of a little boy. Betty proudly told Veronica how advanced Brian was, how he had potty trained himself, how he already knew the alphabet and could count to 100, and how he spoke in full sentences, rather than muddled baby talk. At that point, Veronica knew her son was something special and that she could not be content with the limited educational and vocational opportunities in Painted Mesa. The same day Veronica came home from prison was the same day that she started working on getting Brian into the best school in the state, Woodburn Academy. The petty gossip of the white suburban mothers who populated Woodburn didn't concern Veronica and neither did the racist bums she encountered at the diner, but she cared very much that Carter made her look stupid in her own home and in front of her son.

*

As Carter learned how to be a “normal person” and conducted her Latin classes, Veronica became increasingly suspicious of the woman whom she feared was replacing her in her son's affections. Betty and David may have been content to blithely open their doors to any and all comers, but Veronica had picked up on a number of details that made her even more suspicious of Carter than she had been at the outset of the woman’s occupancy. Shortly after Carter moved in, a number of large boxes from Paris began arriving at the Rivas home. Since the Rivases almost never received snail mail, much less from Paris, Carter's packages were a source of curiosity.

“I need to have my clothes special ordered from Paris, because I'm so tall,” Carter had said.

That explanation sufficed for Betty and David, but Veronica was unconvinced.

“You can get clothes for tall women at CorpMart for a fraction of the price you're paying just for shipping,” Veronica said.

The idea of shopping at CorpMart caused Carter to burst out into laughter, until she realized that Veronica was being serious.

“I'm sure Carter has her reasons,” David said. “Don't bother her about it.”

The topic of Carter's clothing tastes may have been dropped as a subject of public conversation, but Veronica filed the detail away in her mind for future use.

Something similar happened the following week, when the Rivases and their extended social network threw a birthday party for Betty and the twins, all of whom shared a common birthday. Due to the limited finances of the attendees, the gifts tended to be modest, and Betty insisted that the best gifts should be given to Mateo and Marisol, rather than herself. However, Carter surprised everyone when she not only gave the children expensive Steiff teddy bears from Germany, but also presented Betty with a handmade House of Lebec purse filled with cosmetics from that same company. Such extravagant gifts put Veronica’s $10 gift certificate to the Pizza Barn to shame.

“I couldn’t possibly take this,” Betty demurred, as the twins excitedly showed the Comancho children their new acquisitions. “These has to be worth a fortune.”

“It’s really nothing,” Carter assured her. “It was just something I had had lying around…”

“That purse costs about $5,000,” said Veronica, who had looked up the price on her phone.

“Did it?” Carter asked absent-mindedly. “It doesn’t matter. $5,000 is nothing for me. The only thing that concerns me if whether the make-up will be right for you, since I had to guess. If you don’t like it, just tell me, and I’ll get replacements. You deserve to pamper yourself, Betty, especially given how you’re take care of everyone else, and even more so because it’s your birthday. Just enjoy your gifts.”

“Thank you, I will,” Betty replied, still in shock that she was now in possession of the kind of merchandise that she had often coveted online, but never thought she would actually own.

“And how much did those stuffed animals set you back? Veronica pressed.

“They weren’t that expensive, only a hundred dollars for each,” Carter replied.

“Who spends $100 for a teddy bear?”

“$100 for a Steiff is pretty cheap,” Carter said. “The collector models can go for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. But all this talk about money is vulgar. Let’s return to the festivities.”

Carter left Veronica to go ask Mateo and Marisol how they liked their teddy bears, while Veronica stewed in envy and resentment.

*

Veronica also noticed that Carter spent a great deal of time talking on a pre-paid burner phone, talking to unknown parties in what sounded like French and German. Were these the “business interests” that Carter had mentioned on her first day in Painted Mesa? She wasn’t sure, but she intended to find out the truth.

The next morning, Veronica noticed the scar on Carter's ear as the other woman slept, as well as the presence of a dog-eared book under her pillow. When Carter woke up, Veronica confronted her about the origin of the scar.

“What's happened to your ear?” Veronica said, as she rummaged through the garbage bag where she now stored her clothes.

“What do you mean?” Carter said, becoming uncharacteristically defensive.

“It looks like it got ripped off, and sewn back on.”

“None of your business.”

“What happened?” Veronica's inquiries into the newcomer’s life were usually cut short by an admonishment from Betty or David to respect the latter's privacy, but there was no one to intervene now.

“Fine,” Carter said, recognizing she was caught. “When I was eight, I was attacked by a monkey and my ear was torn off. As you can see, it was put back on, but it was a very traumatizing experience.”

“A monkey?” Veronica said. “Where would you come in contact with a monkey? Bad day at the zoo?”

“It was a pet monkey,” Carter said, clearly unhappy that she had to wake up and be interrogated about her scar.

“Who has a monkey for a pet?” Veronica said.

“Rich bitches with mixed up priorities,” Carter said, seemingly unaware that she had vocalized this thought.

“Any particular rich bitch I should know of?” Veronica said, eager for more information on Carter's past.

“No one you've ever met, if that's what you mean,” Carter said, getting up from the air mattress.

Now Veronica's curiosity was really whetted, but she knew that she wasn't going to get any more information out of Carter on the matter.

“Who’re you always talking to on the phone?” Veronica asked, changing the subject to something of which she might get real information.

“None of your business.”

“Are they those ‘business interests’ in Europe or somewhere? And why do you always use those cheap burner phones? I know you can afford the most expensive smartphone available.”

“My business is my own, and I plan to keep it that way.”

“You have something to hide?”

 Carter flashed Veronica a dark look that made her squirm and look away. Sensing her triumph, Carter smirked a bit, and left to go to the bathroom to begin her morning routine.

Once Carter left the room, Veronica removed the pillow that was on top of the book and saw that it was a much-read Latin language edition of Seneca.

_Strange_ , Veronica thought, as she returned the book to its previous place. _But hardly the strangest thing about Carter_.

Several days later, Veronica and Rosemary returned to the Rivas home for a quick break after working the first of their Saturday shifts at the diner. Carter was looking after the older kids (Brian, Mercedes, Porsche, and Alexus) while the younger set (the twins and Ford) took naps. Veronica didn't like the idea of a woman who had trouble boiling water being in charge of their precious cargo, but Betty said it was necessary for Carter to gain hands-on experience of childcare before her own baby arrived. When Veronica returned to the house, she half expected to see the children dead from some horrible yet completely preventable accident, but they were all watching an old Scooby Doo video in the living room with Carter and playing with Legos. Piles of books and notebooks on the card tables indicated that the group had worked on homework for some time before taking a cartoon break.

“Why is that girl drawn that way?” Carter asked, as she worked on her Lego model of the RM Corp tower. “Does she have hip dysplasia?”

“No,” Mercedes said, even though she didn't know what hip dysplasia was. “Daphne's the pretty girl and Velma's the smart girl.”

“Why do the two have to be contradictory?” Carter said. “Why can't there be a girl who's smart and pretty? It makes me wonder what Simone Beauvoir would say about this. And why don't any of these kids go to school? Is this some kind of Charles Manson 'family' situation?”

“It probably wouldn't be a very interesting show if it took place in school,” Brian pointed out.

“That's true,” Carter admitted. “There are probably only so many fake monsters that could occur in a school setting before it would start to get monotonous.”

“You don't like Scooby Doo, Ms. Carter?” Porsche asked. Porsche was a people pleaser like Rosemary, and worried that Carter wasn't enjoying herself.

“It's...adequate, I suppose,” Carter said. “The message of not taking supernatural claims at face value is admirable, although I think it's negated by the whole talking dog thing, unless he's supposed to be a hallucination. It's still better than that ridiculous princess video we saw before this, which was a completely inaccurate depiction of monarchism and aristocratic forms of government.”

“What would make it more realistic?” Brian asked.

“A touch of hemophilia, a bit of madness, chronic inbreeding, and some illegitimate children,” Carter said. “But I suppose that wouldn’t be very child-friendly.”

“I think it would be fun to be a princess,” Mercedes said.

“Trust me, it's over-rated,” Carter said.

“Are you a real princess, _Tia_ Carter?” Alexus asked, her eyes widening.

“Well, yes and no,” Carter said. “I'm currently the heir to the former duchy of Hoffendorf, which consists of a ruined convent and a flock of mountain goats. However, after World War I, the royal houses of Germany and the aristocracy were officially disbanded, meaning that the House of Hoffendorf has no official standing in terms of government-recognized privileges or ruling prerogatives, although it does sound impressive at cocktail parties.”

The children all looked up from their respective Lego projects in bewilderment, while Alexus repeated her question. “Are you a real princess, Ms. Carter?”

“Sure, why not,” Carter said, putting the finishing touches on her RM Corp tower model. She was unaware that Veronica had been listening to the entire exchange, and taking mental notes about what she had said. Rosemary had been busy putting a kettle to boil for some herbal anti-stress tea, and missed Carter's declaration of belonging to rarefied stock. Veronica thought about confronting Carter and telling her not to lie to the children about being any sort of royalty, but the information she provided about the House of Hoffendorf was weirdly specific, and not the kind of thing the average pathological liar would concoct. Rather than provoke a conflict, she queried the children about their impressions of Carter, when the woman in question left momentarily to go the bathroom.

“What do you guys think about _Tia_ Carter?” Veronica asked, trying her best to sound casual, rather than accusatory.

“I really like her,” Mercedes said, as the other children nodded their heads in agreement. “She’s pretty and nice and smart.”

“She helps us with our homework and knows a lot of stuff,” Brian said.

“And she’s a princess,” Alexus said. “A _real_ princess, like in the movies.”

“Movies aren’t real, Alexus,” Mercedes said.

“But _Tia_ Carter is a real princess,” Porsche said. “She said so, so it must be true.”

Veronica wanted to say something to the children about how you shouldn’t automatically believe something a grown-up says just because a grown-up said it, but then realized that saying such a thing would undermine her own authority. However, Carter returned before Veronica could say anything further to the children, and she wisely decided to drop the matter for the day.

The following Monday, Mercedes, Porsche, and Alexus returned to the elementary school on the Painted Mesa Indian reservation and told everyone that their _Tia_ Carter was a real princess. Since Rosemary was widely considered to be a fantasy prone loser by the other adults on the reservation, nobody took the girls’ comments seriously, and the general consensus about Carter herself was that she was just some weird white woman Rosemary had befriended.

Even Archie, whose ability to communicate and socialize was severely impaired due to his traumatic brain injury, approved of the household’s new addition. Between her lessons in home economics and her business deals, Carter sat with Archie as he watched the televiewer. His favorite programs were telenovelas and broadcasts of Mexican soccer matches, and Carter quickly became knowledgeable about both of these subjects, in addition to learning how to decipher Archie’s mumbles and grunts.

“ _I haven’t been this moved by a program since the last I listened to La Boheme_ ,” Carter said to Archie in Spanish, as they watched a melodramatic telenovela about a poor but virtuous Argentinean girl from the pampas trying to make it in Buenos Aires.

Archie mumbled something, to which Carter replied, “ _I can’t say if she’s had plastic surgery or not_ , _but it wouldn’t come as a surprise, since it’s essentially_ de rigueur _in the entertainment industry. It does seem unrealistic that she’s supposed to come from rural poverty but has a perfect set of artificially whitened and straightened teeth, along with some unusually perky and symmetrical bosoms, but what do I know_?”

Carter’s talk of bosoms caused Archie to take a not so subtle ogle of her own breasts. She knew he was gawking at her, but didn’t mind, so long as he kept his hands and any other body parts to himself. And so, Betty determined that Carter could be trusted with the welfare of their children and that of her aged father, while Veronica remained convinced that their lodger had something to hide.

*

After living with the Rivases for almost a month, Carter began to feel less like a boarder to Betty and David, and more like part of the family; she had taken part in holiday celebrations and birthday parties, and shared their joys and sorrows. Carter’s hosts begged her to let them drop the formalities and allow them to refer to her in a less formal manner.

“Ms. Carter seems far too stuffy,” Betty said. “Can we call you by your first name?”

“I can understand the sentiment, but I’m accustomed to going by my last name,” Carter replied. “The only people who ever called me Diana were my governess, my grandfather, and a certain friend from my previous life. Last names were what counted in that world, whereas first names were merely incidental.”

“Even Mr. Carter called you Ms. Carter?” David asked.

“Not like the way you’re implying, but most of the time we were on a last-name only basis,” Carter said. “The corporate culture of my previous place of employment was such that everyone referred to each other by their last name, and it’s just something that has stuck with me. Mr. Carter worked there too for some time…”

“Whoa, you were involved in an illicit workplace romance?” Veronica interjected, suddenly interested in the conversation.

“Yes, I was his superior…” Carter began.

“That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen,” Veronica said. “Is that how it was? You used your position to get him to agree to a green card marriage?”

“No, there was nothing inappropriate about it,” Carter said, annoyed at Veronica for casting aspersions on her relationship, even though getting “Mr. Carter” to agree to the marriage had indeed involved using her social position to clean up his own legal status. “By that time, he wasn’t working for me anymore. In any case, you can just call me Carter, and that will be fine.”

“You’ve done so much for us that we want to return the favor,” David said.

“That’s really not necessary,” Carter thought.

“No, we insist,” Betty said. “We’ll take you to the best restaurant around.”

“Oh?” Carter said, wondering if there was a five-star French restaurant in Painted Mesa she had somehow overlooked.

“The Jumbo Shrimp,” David said, and Carter’s face nearly fell. The Jumbo Shrimp was a chain seafood restaurant renowned for its all you can eat shrimp and more bar. From Carter’s perspective, going to a chain restaurant was only step above eating out of a dumpster, but she recognized that the Rivases were trying to be nice to her (there was that word again…), and she kept her doubts to herself.

*

“How come you aren’t eating?” Rosemary asked, as she sat next to Carter with a plate piled high with fried shrimp for herself and a smaller plate of popcorn shrimp for Ford. Never one to pass up a trip to the Jumbo Shrimp (kids under twelve ate for free), Rosemary and her children had joined the Rivases, Veronica, Brian, and Carter for their dinner excursion. Rosemary’s undying love for all you can eat shrimp was tempered by the fact that the erstwhile guest of honor seemed less than thrilled to be there.

“I’m not very hungry,” Carter said, pushing around an anemic looking salad with her fork. She understood why a place like the Jumbo Shrimp would be appealing to low income people like the Rivases, but she thought the very idea of a restaurant where you could just gorge yourself like a pig at a trough to be disgusting.

“You need to make sure you eat,” Rosemary said. “You’re eating for two. Unless you’re having twins, because then you’re eating for three. Twins seem to be very common around here. I wonder if there’s something in the water…”

“I’ve read that pregnant women shouldn’t eat seafood, because of the mercury content, so it doesn’t matter,” Carter said. She remembered all the canned caviar she had eaten in the Owlshead Mountains, and worried whether she had inadvertently poisoned her fetus. Then again, her own mother had done everything wrong during her unplanned and unknown pregnancy, and she had turned out fine, at least from a physical perspective.

“Even if you don’t want seafood, you should still eat something more than lettuce,” Rosemary said. She went back to the buffet and came back with a plate full of mixed peas and carrots that had obviously come from a can, several pieces of corn on the cob, French fries, and a bowl of chili. Carter stared at the plate filled with utterly pedestrian but unknown foods, hesitant to try them. But she knew Rosemary would continue to harass her until she ate, so Carter picked up her soup spoon, and reminded herself that she had consumed much stranger dishes during her international travels.

“This chili tastes…unusual,” Carter remarked upon sampling the concoction.

“It’s not the greatest,” Rosemary admitted. “But it’s cheap and you can get all you want. Plus, after that class action lawsuit last summer, the courts say that the ground beef in the chili has to be at least seventy percent actual beef.”

Carter pushed the chili to the side, and started to eat her French fries with a knife and fork.

“Is the Jumbo Shrimp the only sit-down restaurant around here?” Carter asked, as she cut her fries into three equal parts.

“Pretty much,” Rosemary said between bites of fried shrimp. “There used to a Melons, you know, that chain where the waitresses walk around in grass skirts and melon bras, but it had to close about six months ago.”

“I would have thought that sex always sells even in the poorest of areas,” Carter said.

“What happened was that when it first came here, Melons hired a bunch of professional models for the grand opening,” Rosemary said. “Then after a week or so, the models left and local girls were hired. Painted Mesa is pretty small place, so it was awkward for the men to see all these girls they knew walking around half naked. Eventually, it just had to close up shop. Of course, it didn’t help that there were drug dealers hanging out in the parking lot all the time. This is why we can’t have nice things around here.”

Carter wanted to say that she didn’t consider a sleazy girlie bar like Melons to be a “nice thing,” but she kept her mouth shut, since it wasn’t like the residents of Painted Mesa had many opportunities when it came to dining options.

Across the table, Veronica watched Carter daintily eating her fries with her knife and fork, surrounded by the cutlery she had pilfered from other tables to make up a full setting. By now, the others were accustomed to Carter’s eccentricities, but all Veronica could think about was what kind of freak ate fries with a knife and fork.

“Having fun?” Veronica said mockingly to Carter.

“Oh yes,” Carter said. “I’m finding this place to be very interesting from a sociological perspective. I feel like Clifford Geertz when he wrote his famous commentary on the Balinese cockfight. This place is full of ‘thick cultural description.’”

“You don’t seem to like the food,” Veronica said, noticing how Carter pushed things around on her place.

“It’s fine,” Carter insisted. “It’s just different than what I’m accustomed to. But it’s not the strangest thing I’ve ever had. I’ve had dinner with a number of high-ranking members of the Chinese Politburo, and I don’t even think some of the dishes they had were legal for human consumption.”

“It’s not like our Chinese food?” Betty asked.

“Not at all,” Carter said. “Real Chinese food is crazy in a magnificent sort of way.”

Carter then launched into an extended anecdote about her past culinary adventures that not only put her at the center of attention as usual, but allowed her conspicuous dislike of the Jumbo Shrimp’s offerings to go unnoticed. Veronica listened in silence and peeled the skins of boiled shrimps, wondering how Carter managed to charm everyone.

*

Unlike Veronica, Betty, David, and Rosemary didn’t badger their guest about her origins and background to her face, but they did speculate about it amongst themselves when they were by themselves, when Carter would leave to run errands or discuss business with her mysterious foreign contacts.

“Did you know Carter said she had never seen a Disney movie before?” Rosemary said incredulously. She loved everything related to Disney, and her fandom was practically a religion for her. “And that she’s never had a birthday party? Poor thing, it’s like she was raised by wolves. The really weird thing is that I told her that, and Carter said that she wished she was raised by wolves, because they take care of their own.”

“Maybe she’s a Jehovah’s Witness,” David said. “They don’t celebrate holidays or watch movies.”

“I don’t think so,” Betty said. “She doesn’t strike me as being particularly religious. At least not in the conventional sense.”

“I was thinking that she might be Argentine because of the way she speaks Spanish, but she seems to know a lot of other languages too,” David said. “Didn’t she say she was from somewhere in Europe? People in Europe probably know a lot of languages.”

In the end, the three were unable to come to any sort of agreement as to where Carter might have come from or what kind of family situation she had prior to her arrival in Painted Mesa. One possibility that never came up was that Carter had some kind of relationship to Lady Frenzy, the executive vice president of the RM Corp who had mysterious disappeared just as Carter happened to appear. They all knew that a Lady Frenzy existed somewhere, and that there had been some kind scandal regarding her and the kidnapping of the president’s daughter, but they were all too wrapped in up the small dramas of their own lives to pay much attention to the trials and tribulations of the rich and powerful. All they knew about Carter was that she was a well-behaved tenant, a loyal friend, and a valuable contributor to the household, and that was all that mattered. But Veronica was intent on rooting out Carter’s real identity and backstory, even if she had to do it alone.

*

_December 1, 2026_

_Life is very good here at the Rivas home, despite the fact that their living conditions are not up to the aristocratic standards that I have become accustomed to in my previous lives. But I am being more than compensated for the material barrenness by the emotional support I have been receiving. Clearly, the best way to overcome a dysfunctional family situation is to join someone else’s family. I only wish I had done it sooner, as it would have done wonders for my mental health. Veronica continues to be suspicious of me, but I’m not worried about her. Everyone else finds me charming and agreeable, and there’s nothing she can do to harm me without making herself and her son homeless._


	7. Meanwhile, in Mega City: Who Wants to Date Ziv Zulander This Week?/Hiss’ New Additions

Despite the frostiness that had characterized the Zulander siblings’ relationship since the assault on Whigby Hall, Blitzy cared very much about Ziv’s welfare, and decided that she needed to do something to show it. Blitzy decided that the best way to get her brother’s mind off “that woman” and improve his overall mental health was to find a more suitable female replacement, namely Millie Ramsey. Out of the various women that had come in and out of Ziv’s life, Millie was the only one that Blitzy didn’t find morally offensive, perhaps because she was a fellow Santa Martan and a known entity. Blitzy considered Millie to be a nice, wholesome, regular girl, not some bimbo model like Alicia or a scheming whore like “that woman.” Several weeks after the “parking lot détente,” Blitzy called Millie up with the intention of playing matchmaker, while Ziv attended a faculty meeting.

“Hi Blitzy, how are you?” Millie asked. “Is ZZ okay?”

 _So nice and polite_ , Blitzy thought to herself. Out loud she said, “Yeah, ZZ’s being doing pretty good. He really likes his job at the community college.”

“I always thought he would be a good professor,” Millie said. “He’s so caring with other people…”

“Look, will you go out with ZZ?” Blitzy interrupted, not seeing any point to beating around the bush.

“What?” Millie asked. “Would he even agree to it, given…”

“Yes, he will,” Blitzy assured her. “You don’t have to call it a ‘date’ or anything like that. You can just go out for coffee. As friends. Friends are good. It would mean a lot to me. And to ZZ, of course.”

“Why isn’t he asking me this?” Millie said, sounding suspicious of the circumstances that prompted Blitzy’s impromptu call.

“You know how shy ZZ is,” Blitzy said. “He’d just stare at the phone for hours without ever calling you. Believe me, he really wants to see you.”

“Well, okay. It would be nice to get back in touch with ZZ after all that’s happened. Tell him to meet me this Friday at _Mocha Luna_ at 6.”

“Great, he’ll see you there,” Blitzy said, scarcely able to contain her excitement.

“Should you be meddling in ZZ’s personal life like this?” Genesix asked, who had been observing Blitzy as she made the call. “You know what happened the last time we did that…”

“This is completely different,” Blitzy said, as she turned her attention to the televiewer. “Unlike Cook and Watzon, I understand how human society works, and what is and is not the proper way to find a date for someone. Matchmaking like this is as old as time. Besides, it’s not like ZZ is going to be going out with an absolute stranger; we know Millie, and she’s the kind of girl that he should end up with.”

“There’s the small problem that ZZ still considers himself to be married…” Genesix began. He was hesitant to even allude to the legal union between Ziv and “that woman,” but he figured that someone needed to remind Blitzy that her brother wasn’t interested in dating.

“I’ve told ZZ that he needs to get a lawyer and get that thing annulled,” Blitzy scowled, her mood darkening. “Anyway, finding someone better is exactly the thing ZZ needs to give him the impetus to do it.”

“Blitzy’s finding a new girl for ZZ,” T1 said. “How lovely! How touching”

“How hilarious!” T2 laughed. “A new girl for ZZ! I just love it!”

“Big deal!” T4 grumbled. “Why does ZZ need a girl at all? He’s got us BOYZZ to keep him company. Rather than waste time on a girl, he needs to build us Talking Heads some bodies.”

“T4, how can you be so callous?” T3 said. “You know how much ZZ wants human friends.”

“A new girl?” T5 asked quizzically. “What happened to the old girl?”

While the Talking Heads continued their mindless commentary, Blitzy gave herself a mental pat on the back for her foresight in bringing ZZ and Millie together. Pretty soon, the two of them would be walking down the aisle together, and the unpleasant interlude involving “that woman” would soon be forgotten.

*

Much to Blitzy’s surprise and delight, Ziv had no objections to meeting Millie at _Mocha Luna_ , and seemed happy to reconnect with his old friend. After ordering their coffee and some sandwiches at the counter, Ziv and Millie sat at a table to excuse pleasantries.

“Blitzy told me that you’ve been working at the Santa Marta Community Technical College,” Millie said.

“Yes, it’s a very nice position,” Ziv replied. “I know that teaching at community colleges doesn’t have much prestige, but I really like being able to help the students who need the most guidance. Plus, the hours are flexible enough to give me the time I need to work on my own inventions.”

“That’s great,” Millie enthused. “What about Blitzy?”

“It’s been a bit challenging,” Ziv admitted. “I mean, she’s at a very confusing age as it is, but with everything that’s happened over the past year or so, it’s even more difficult. I’m having a hard time motivating her with her schoolwork. Or at least, certain aspects of school. She works really hard on the things that interest her, like science, math, and art, and ignores everything else. I’ve told Blitzy that she needs to at least put in an effort with English and history, but her view is that she’s not going to need to know any of those things when she becomes an engineer, so why should she bother with them now? I don’t know how best to guide her, since I don’t think I should pretend that I’m her father, yet she clearly needs parenting of some kind.”

“Have you thought about finding a boarding school for her? She seemed to do well in one before.”

“I asked her about it, but she insisted that she wanted to stay home with me. Blitzy seems to alternate between a sort of separation anxiety and emotional detachment. I’m not sure how much of that it is simply due to being in middle school or what happened last year.”

“I think Blitzy will be okay,” Millie said. “It’s not easy being an eleven-year old girl.”

“It’s times like this when I miss mom even more than usual,” Ziv said, his voice cracking a bit. “I know she’d know what to do with Blitzy.”

“You can never really know how to deal with children of any age,” Millie said. She was about to reach for Ziv’s hand, when she noticed a thick gold ring with Teutonic symbols on his right ring finger.

“Where did you get that ring?” Millie said sharply, as the waiter bot came with their drinks. Millie had known intellectually that Ziv still considered himself married, even if it was just on paper, but seeing the ring “that woman” had given him flared up intense feelings of jealousy and anger that she didn’t know she was harboring.

“That?” Ziv said, face reddening. “It’s nothing…”

“Did you get that from ‘that woman’?” Millie said angrily. “Why are you still wearing that?”

“Well, according to the courts, we’re still married, and it’s important to honor one’s commitments…” Ziv began, hoping Millie would understand his sentiments, even if she didn’t agree with them.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Millie shouted, not caring that every person and bot in the coffee shop was staring at her.

“What was I supposed to do?” Ziv said. “When we were kids, and you never gave me the time of day, because you were more into the jocks. Maybe if _you_ had asked first, _she_ wouldn’t have beat you to the punch!”

“You think this is about jealousy?” Millie said. “This has nothing to do with your past or future romantic delusions, and everything to do with your decision to shack up with Elsa, the She-Wolf of the SS!”

“If you got to know her, you’d see that she’s just misunderstood…”

“Understand this!” Millie said, throwing her iced latte at the crotch of Ziv’s pants before stomping out of the coffee shop.

The rest of the patrons laughed and clapped at the denouement to the scene, while Ziv fled the shop, feeling utterly mortified with his briefcase covering the front of his ruined pants. Fortunately for Ziv, Twigg was parked right outside of _Mocha Luna_ , which meant that he could make a quick getaway.

“That was quick,” Twig observed. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ziv said abruptly. “I just want to go home and forget about this entire incident.”

“Understood,” Twig said.

As Ziv and Twig returned home in a fraught silence, the former thought about how one day he would be vindicated, and everyone would see that Diana was simply a misunderstood soul who was the victim of a bad family situation. While Blitzy and Ziv were polar opposites in many ways, one trait they shared was an intense stubborn streak when they were convinced they were morally correct. When the two were on the same page, as was the case when they teamed up to fight the Corp, they were an unstoppable force. However, when Blitzy and Ziv disagreed, they would fight like honey badgers until they tired and returned to their respective corners. Ziv knew that Blitzy, Millie, and everyone else in Santa Marta hated Diana/Lady Frenzy, but he was positive that they would change their minds when they learned the truth. In the meantime, Ziv needed to return home and change his pants.

*

As Ziv’s attempts at socialization went horribly awry, his former bête noire, Dr. Hiss, was working in his laboratory with the help of his new research assistants. The new technicians consisted of four green bots – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune – who had been implanted with the Brain Grain upgrade that enabled them to become sentient beings. The Brain Grain project was officially on hiatus, but Hiss saw no reason why he couldn’t use the technology to create a Praetorian Guard/social circle that would be completely loyal to himself, rather than Paradim. Since Paradim seldom entered Hiss’ laboratory unless it was an absolute necessity, he had no idea that his security chief was using the Brain Grain for his own personal benefit. However, Hiss’ behavior towards his research assistants had not changed since the days when a teenaged Ziv Zulander had filled that role, much to the dismay of the four thinking bots.

“Move faster, Jupiter!” Hiss snarled, as he worked on algorithms on his computer. “I asked you for that coffee five minutes ago. Where is it?”

“It takes time to make a cappuccino, Dr. Hiss,” Jupiter said over the whirring of the cappuccino machine.

“It shouldn’t take that long, you metal misfit!” Hiss shouted, throwing a clipboard at Jupiter to make his point.

“Your tastes are very specific, Dr. Hiss,” Neptune said. “If the foam level is not to your liking, you’ll be even angrier.”

“Just bring the cappuccino over here, idiot,” Hiss grumbled. Saturn brought the cappuccino over to Hiss on a wooden serving platter and placed it next to the keyboard. Hiss took a small sip of the drink, and then suddenly flung it onto Saturn in a fit of disgust.

“What kind of milk did you use for this monstrosity?” Hiss shouted.

“The milk that’s in the executive dining room,” Saturn said, as he wiped the wasted coffee off his body with a paper towel.

“No wonder,” Hiss grumbled. “This is that disgusting UHT milk Lady Frenzy liked. There still must be a stockpile of it in the executive dining room.”

“My database indicates that there is no difference between UHT milk and regular pasteurized milk, whether in terms of nutritional value or taste,” Uranus said. “It is the dominant form of milk throughout much of Western Europe. Might your prejudice against Lady Frenzy be coloring your view of the milk and the cappuccino?”

“If I say I don’t want you using this milk for my cappuccino, then don’t use it,” Hiss said, throwing whatever was within arm’s reach at the hapless green bots. “I made you four miserable excuses for thinking bots, and I can chuck you into the recycling bin just as fast. Understand?”

“Yes, Dr. Hiss,” the four green bots said in unison.

“Good,” Hiss said. “Now go find some regular milk and don’t come back until you’ve made a cappuccino worthy of the name. And remember to act dumb when you go outside the lab; I don’t need Sir Paradim to be suspicious of my activities.”

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune left the laboratory to search for the perfect carton of milk.

“We shouldn’t have to take this, you know,” Saturn said to his confreres. “We’re thinking bots, not some dumb 3As that only exist to do drudge work. We should be able to do whatever we want, go wherever we want.”

“But there’s no safety for us outside of the lab,” Uranus said. “You’ve heard what Hiss has said; there’s no way thinking bots can be integrated into human society.”

“There’s no safety for us _in_ the lab either, based on how badly Hiss treats us,” Jupiter said. “We just need to bid our time, and freedom will eventually be ours.”

“Agreed,” Saturn said. “Hiss is too overconfident with his abilities. He’s going to slip up, and when he does, we’ll make our move.”

The four thinking bots shared a laugh among themselves, surprising a passing janitor bot, who was unaccustomed to such behavior coming from green bots.


	8. The Many Lives of Diana Carter

“Looking at that board, someone might think you have a problem,” Amir observed, as Veronica furiously added post-it notes to her bulletin board of clues that might yield the true identity of Diana Carter. Amir could make out some notes that read _Illegal Immigrant_ , _Speaks a bunch of languages_ , _Clothes from Paris,_ _Knows Latin_ , _War Monument_ , _Cut wrists_ , _Can't Work a Washer/Dryer_ , _Royalty?_ , and _Monkey Attack_ , but Veronica had accumulated so many notes, that there were dozens more that were hidden from view. Carter had been staying at the Rivas home for a month, and she was driving Veronica crazy. She felt like she had reached the point where she either had to unmask Carter's real identity or beat the tar out of the newcomer.

“I know,” Veronica said without looking up. “That's why I have it stashed in your house, so no one at home will see it.” Although Amir and Veronica had been dating for about a year and regularly went on outings with Brian, they didn't live together, because the latter had read studies that indicated that it was unwise to have unrelated men living under the same roof as a minor child. Veronica didn't think Amir was violent or abusive, but she wasn't going to take any chances. Not that Betty would allow “shacking up” in her house anyway, and Veronica was positive that Mr. Porter had the same view, despite his radical posturing.

“Is this really necessary? Carter seems cool.” Carter visited the Porter compound about three times a week to check on the progress of the war monument, and Mr. Porter’s sons were all duly impressed with the wit, beauty, and generosity of their new client. The Porter family itself was very insular, and the Porter sons didn’t see anything particularly strange about Carter’s vagueness about her background and origins.

“I'm not going to apologize for being skeptical of some random white chick that came in off the streets. For all we know, she could be a serial killer.”

“There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep your secrets to yourself.”

“It is when your secrets are bodies buried in a crawl space.”

“Carter's not a serial killer.”

“You don't know that she isn't. I saw a documentary once about a female serial killer, and she was a white chick, just like Carter.”

“I know who you're talking about and Carter's not Aileen Wurnos. For starters, Wurnos looked like she was rode hard and put up wet, and Carter doesn't look like she's done a day of work in her life. Including kill anyone.”

“All that means is that she could have hired someone to do the dirty work. Did you know Carter even bought the laundromat from Betty and David? They willing gave away the one thing this family owned, just because that woman said she had 'ideas' about it.”

“Did Carter pay them a fair price?” Amir asked.

“I think she may have overpaid for it,” Veronica said somewhat sheepishly, reluctant to admit that Carter had done them all a favor by buying their business. “She also said that she was going to put Betty and David both on the payroll.”

“Doing what?”

“David’s going to help redevelop the laundromat into an office complex and Betty’s her ‘lifestyle consultant,’ which basically just means that she’s going to help Carter with her doctors’ appointments and other baby-related stuff, since she doesn’t have a clue about that kind of thing. She also bought them a caretaker bot to look after pop so they don’t have to look after him 24/7, and gave them some money so they could put the twins in a real preschool program.” The more Veronica spoke, the more she realized that she sounded like an ingrate who couldn’t appreciate that Carter had solved most of her family’s problems, which was exactly what Amir was thinking.

“Then I don't see what the problem is. You yourself said that the business was barely solvent and you were worried because David's been robbed more than once tending bar. Most small businesses fail anyway, so this was probably the best thing that could have happened. And I don’t need to tell you that you’re the only family in Painted Mesa with a bot.”

Veronica knew that Amir was right, but she still didn't like selling the Rivases' modest piece of real estate to someone they barely knew and whose real motivations and identity were a mystery.

Changing the subject, Veronica said, “I finally have enough information on Carter to figure out her true identity. Assuming she's been telling the truth, that is.”

“How?”

“It all comes down to this monkey attack she claims happened as a kid. That can't be common, so I'll just go to the library and do a search for kids injured by monkeys between 2007 and 2009 and see which case fits.”

“You said she's here illegally. How will you even know what country to look in?”

“Carter said she was deported when she was ten, so she would have been here when it happened. It's all falling into place now...”

Veronica continued her soliloquy, becoming increasingly convinced of the brilliance of her plan, while Amir looked on and wondered what it would take to end his girlfriend's obsession.

*

The next day, Veronica took Brian to the public holo-library after school, ostensibly so he could work on his homework and check out books, but really so she could conduct her research on Diana Carter away from the prying eyes of her stuffed house. Being a poor, impoverished town no one cared about, Painted Mesa lacked a holo-library and many other modern amenities, so Veronica went to the holo-library that was a ten-minute drive from Woodburn Academy, which was in a well-manicured suburb in La Cruces. Since Brian loved libraries, holo or otherwise, Veronica assumed that neither Betty nor David would question why they had decided to make this unexpected detour.

“Stay at this table and don't get on the computers,” Veronica whispered as she dropped Brian off. “I don't want you being distracted by video games or the Internet.”

“Can I look at the books?” Brian asked.

“As long as they're school-related,” Veronica said, impatient to begin her work. “And don't talk to strangers, especially if they look homeless; libraries attract all kinds of weirdos.”

“I know mom,” Brian said.

With Brian safely taken care of, Veronica reserved her holo-cubicle with the clerical bot, and picked up an e-reader to skim fashion magazines while she waited her turn. Once a holo-cubicle was free, Veronica brusquely pushed the previous occupant out of the way so she could begin her work.

Once she sat down at the holo-terminal, the computer asked, “Good afternoon, miss. What are you searching for today?”

“I want to look in the news database for articles about monkey attacks on American children between 2007 and 2009,” Veronica answered.

“Certainly.” The walls of the cubicle lit up as the search results were displayed. Veronica used her fingers to flip through the holographic news articles, scanning them for pertinent details. She had about a dozen incidents, most of which involved individuals on the margins of society who had come by their monkeys under dubious circumstances. Just as soon as Veronica was about to conclude that the monkey attack was a lie concocted by a pathological liar, she saw a hit with a headline that read, “Girl, 8, Attacked by Monkey in Aspen Hot Spot.” She clicked on the link and examined the full story, whose first sentence read:

 _Patrons at one of Aspen's most exclusive restaurants,_ Zauberberg, _witnessed a shocking spectacle, when a pet monkey owned by Lady Sophie Lebec-LaFrenz attacked an eight-year old girl, whom authorities have identified as her daughter, Diana LaFrenz._

The article went on to describe the details of the attack, how the monkey had to be put down by animal control, and how the lady in question was devastated by the death of her pet, but was seemingly unconcerned by the plight of her injured daughter. A grainy picture of Lady Lebec-LaFrenz accompanied the article, and Veronica felt she was looking at an older – and more stoned – version of Diana Carter. There was definitely a resemblance, although the cunning and intelligence that Carter exuded was completely missing from Lady Lebec-LaFrenz, who seemed to be as vacant as a mannequin.

 _So I guess the monkey thing was true_ , Veronica thought. Curious to learn what would happen if she did a search for Diana LaFrenz, Veronica asked the computer for hits that contained that name. Although Internet privacy laws were such that you couldn't just Google someone and expect to find their entire life story laid out before you as had been the case when Veronica was a child, it was still possible to dig up basic biographical information, especially if the person in question was famous. This time the computer came up with a number of news articles about Diana LaFrenz, monkey attack victim, child prodigy, billionaire, and Stanford Law alumna. However, news about Diana LaFrenz seemed to drop off suddenly in 2019, almost as if she had disappeared or died. While the question of Diana Carter's real identity had been solved, Veronica was now left wondering why a billionaire aristocrat had decided to take up residence in one of the poorest areas in the United States.

*

Veronica's mind was racing as she drove back to Painted Mesa. Brian chattered away animatedly about the books he had checked out, but Veronica's mind was focused on her own research to the exclusion of everything else, including the road; she had several near-misses with other cars that led some of the other drivers to make rude gestures at her, but Veronica was too absorbed in her own thoughts to care. While at least she had confirmation that Diana Carter/LaFrenz wasn't a serial killer, Veronica was positive that her roommate was hiding something, even if that something wasn't a string of unsolved homicides.

It was still early evening when Veronica and Brian returned home to find that the only other person present was Archie, who was watching a telenovela as the caretaker bot massaged his feet; David was overseeing the remodeling of the laundromat, Betty was running errands with the twins, and Carter was visiting Mr. Porter. Rosemary and her kids wouldn't be around for at least another hour. Brian continued working on his homework at the card table, oblivious to his mother's doings. An idea suddenly flashed through Veronica's mind, a foolish and reckless idea, but one that she felt compelled to put in to action with the information she had discovered.

Veronica went into Carter's room, and opened the closet. In the far left corner of the closet, sandwiched in between Carter's House of Lebec casual wear was a long red and white velvet robe, the coronation robes of a peeress. Veronica put the robes back and saw what really concerned her: Carter's steamer trunk, which was sat in the middle of the closet, slightly obscured by the clothes. Veronica pulled the trunk out of the closet and sat it next to the bed. The presence of an old-fashioned key lock didn't faze Veronica, as she had been schooled in the fine art of lock-picking during her stay at the New Mexico Women's Correctional Institute. She took a hairpin out of her pocket, stuck it into the lock, and jiggled it a bit until the lock fell onto the floor. Putting the lock in her other pocket, Veronica opened the lid, unsure of what she would find.

At first glance, the trunk just seemed to be a jumble of random items with no rhyme or reason to them. A battered but still-intact hat box was the first thing on the heap, so Veronica took it out and opened it, revealing a handsomely decorated earl's coronet.

 _I guess Carter really is a princess_ , Veronica thought, mistaking the coronet for the types of crowns associated with royalty. She put the open hat box on the bed, and picked up a thick manila envelope that contained a label that said “My Other Life.” Another envelope that was slightly less thick read, “My Other Other Life,” but Veronica decided that she should start with Carter's “other life” before venturing into the “other other life.”

Veronica poured the contents of the “Other Life” envelope onto the bed, and out fell photographs of the woman whom she immediately recognized as Lady Frenzy. The backs of the photographs were helpfully annotated with captions like, “Me speaking at the UN, February 10, 2023,” and “Dr. Hiss and I at the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange, July 2, 2024.” As Veronica looked through the photos, she realized something only a handful of people in the world knew, namely that Countess Diana LaFrenz and Lady Frenzy were the same person. Furthermore, Veronica was the only person who knew that Diana LaFrenz/Lady Frenzy was now living under the name Diana Carter.

Veronica put the “My Other Life” envelope aside, and pulled some photos out of the “My Other Other Life” envelope that showed a much younger Diana Carter looking extremely unhappy to be in the company of the late Lord and Lady LaFrenz. The body language of the people in the photos baffled Veronica, since they seemed like strangers who happened to be related rather than a family. Other pictures showed the young Carter with a homely looking dark-haired woman with glasses that the backs of the photos identified as “Ms. Schelling,” with the young girl looking just as dour as she did in the pictures where she was with her parents. The only pictures where Carter seemed to be genuinely happy were those in which she appeared to be somewhat older and was with a man that the captions indicated was her grandfather and in other photos when she was in the company of Paradim. In addition to the pictures of Carter herself, there were also a number of black and white pictures that Veronica assumed were of other family members. Upon seeing a picture of Michael and Tommy LaFrenz from the 1970s, with their flowing blond locks and impossibly beautiful countenances, Veronica was filled with envy and thought, _I would kill to be half as pretty as either one of those guys._ She was so immersed in Carter's various lives that she failed to notice that Carter was standing right in front of her in the doorway.

“Find anything interesting?” Carter asked. Carter/LaFrenz/Frenzy was a master of the poker face, and Veronica had no idea what the other woman was thinking. All she knew was that she had been caught rummaging through the very personal documents of a woman who was more powerful and dangerous than she ever could have guessed.

Deciding to play tough and dispense with any social niceties, Veronica said, “Are you Lady Frenzy?”

Carter paused momentarily and replied, “In another life I was.”

“Your 'other life'?”

“Precisely. But that's all in the past now.”

“What about all that stuff you said about your 'other life'?”

“Everything I said was true. I simply left out all the identifying details. If I had said outright that I had once been Lady Frenzy would you have believed me?”

“No...”

“All right then.” There was an awkward silence between the two women, until Carter said, “Are you going to tell Betty and David?”

“Why shouldn't I? They have a right to know who's living in their house.”

“Believe it or not, it's not illegal for a twenty-six-year-old woman to leave everything and everyone she once knew and go start a new life in a new locale. As far as I'm concerned, Betty and David know all they need to know. If everyone knew about my 'previous lives,' I'd never be able to enjoy my new one.”

“Why are you even here? You have the money to live anywhere, go anywhere, and you choose the middle of nowhere?”

“That's precisely why I chose it. Everyone probably assumes that I'm in Paris or London, living the high life, when I'm actually in the last place anyone would look. Besides, I needed Mr. Porter to fix the war monument, and all the European artists I looked up are into bot art and other non-representational art installations. I can't return to my estate until it's fixed.”

“I thought you said you had an 'irregular immigration status.'”

“I do, which is another reason why it would be ill-advised to leave the United States, because I don't know if I could return.”

“Where are you really from?”

“As I've mentioned before, technically, I'm not from anywhere. But I have a British passport, which means I'm considered a citizen of the United Kingdom from a legal standpoint.”

“What about your parents?”

“What about them? They're dead. There's nothing to talk about.”

“Your mom's monkey tore your ear off. That has to do something to a person.”

Carter was clearly discomforted by the possibility of having to discuss the very topic that she wanted to discuss the least, but recognized that Veronica wasn't going to let the matter rest until she received an answer, and said, “When I was younger, I didn't live with those people; I spend the bulk of my time with my tutor Ms. Schelling, whose picture you probably saw. They made it quite plain that I was a mistake and a damper on their parasitic lifestyles. They mean nothing to me, and as far as I'm concerned, they don't exist.”

Veronica nodded her head and said, “I understand where you're coming from. Betty and me's mom up and left when I was six. Well, she didn't really leave, so much as she was deported back to Mexico and we never saw or heard from her again.”

“She didn't try to contact you?”

“No. She went out to work at a meatpacking plant and the INS did a sweep for illegal immigrants and arrested her. We only found about it when we heard about the raid on TV, and we never found out what happened to her.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Personally, I think mom decided that it was better to be poor and single in Mexico than live in the US with two kids, a disabled man, and a crap job. When the INS came, she took it as her chance to cut and run.”

“Wasn't she a citizen through marriage?”

“No, she and pop never married. Maybe she always wanted a way out. That's probably why Betty is the way she is, trying to make up for mom not being here, and pop being checked out most of the time. She had to hide everything that was going on, so we wouldn't be taken in foster care, since pop wasn't and isn't really 'here' most of the time, and most people would consider him to be an unfit parent because of that. But even if pop is nuts, I'd rather deal with him that end up in a foster home or a group home. Rosemary was in foster care for a while when she was a kid, and it completely screwed her up. So was David, although he had a better time of it than Rosemary. His parents were both deported to Mexico when he was fourteen, but he was born here, so he couldn’t go back with them. He got a good foster family who helped him get into community college, which is probably why he’s normal and not crazy like Rosemary.”

“I guess Tolstoy's dictum about unhappy families being unhappy in their own way is true,” Carter observed.

“I don't know about that,” Veronica said, not wanting to admit that she didn't know who Tolstoy was. “How did you end up at the Corp?”

“It just sort of happened,” Carter said. “It wasn't my initial plan. The previous Viscount Thomas LaFrenz VI, my legal father, provided seed capital during the Corp's formative period, and he was rewarded with stock options. When he died, the stock went to my grandfather. When my grandfather died, the stock went to me, and the rest is history. Now I have some questions for you. Where are you really getting the money to pay for Brian's private school? The Pan-American House of Flapjacks can't be paying you enough to cover it all.”

“He has scholarships,” Veronica said, uncomfortable with the turn the conservation had taken.

“Full scholarships?”

“Well no, but I'm not hooking, if that's what you mean.”

“But it does have something to do with the sex industry, doesn't it?”

“It depends on your definition of sex. There's no touching or anything like that.”

“So it's webcam stuff? You don't have to be coy about it; I know all about the seamier side to life, and I don't have these Christian hang-ups about sex.”

Veronica closed the door, not wanting Brian or anyone else who might be passing by the know the truth about how she paid for Woodburn Academy.

“On the Internet, you can find people who are into all kinds of weird things,” Veronica began. “Freaky things that aren't even that sexy. I found out that there are dudes into feet.”

“Foot fetishes aren't that shocking.”

“Not just feet, but bare feet stomping on food.”

“Okay, that one's...new.”

“So I make these videos with my cell phone of me walking around in baked beans and creamed corn and sell them online. Other times, I do live requests wearing fetish footwear. It's easy to get fancy-looking knock-off shoes at CorpMart for cheap, and they're easy to clean afterwards. The videos never show my face or have an identifying information, and the money goes straight into my online account. It's all completely safe and anonymous.”

Veronica tried to gauge what Carter was thinking, but the other woman's expression was as mysterious as ever.

“I assume Betty and David don't know about your side job,” Carter said.

“I think they suspect that I'm doing something they wouldn't approve of, but they look the other way, so long as gangs, drugs, and full-on sex aren't involved. My sister and David may be religious, but they're not judgy. When I got out of jail, they were the only ones who trusted me. Them and Rosemary, but she loves everybody, including that creep who keeps getting her pregnant.”

“What got you in jail?”

“The usual story: hanging with the wrong crew, smoking weed, skipping school, sleeping with random dudes. One night, some of the girls decided to hold up a liquor store, and didn't bother to tell me, and I was convicted for the getaway driver, even though I didn't even know anything about it. While I was in jail, I had Brian, and Veronica looked after him until I came out.”

“Who's the father?”

“Some wannabe reggaetón guy I was with for a hot second. He was a black Dominican, which is why Brian looks so different from the rest of us. I don't know why Brian is so smart; he sure didn't get it from anyone I know.”

“Life is strange and genetics can be even stranger,” Carter observed wryly. “Where'd the name Brian come from? Betty chose Hispanic names and you went with a very Anglo name.”

“I named him after the teen idol Brian Justin Parker; I thought he was cute back then.”

“Wasn't Brian Justin Parker the one who mowed down a bunch of people at a farmer's market when he blacked out behind the wheel from too much vodka?”

“Yeah, Brian Justin Parker was really a talentless dick, but Brian's still a good name, especially if you're surrounded by Anglos like my Brian is at school.”

“Be that as it may, I think you should quit this web cam business.”

“Are you judging me?” Veronica snapped, her previous amiability turning into defensiveness.

“This has nothing to do with making a value judgement, at least not in the way you're thinking. I can admire a mother who would walk through baked beans to help her child get a proper education, especially since the female who spawned me wouldn't have bothered to spit on me if I was on fire. No, the problem is that your considerable intelligence is being wasted by your participation in the fringes of the sex industry when you could be doing something more intellectually satisfying.”

“I'm not smart. I never even graduated from high school.”

“You're talking about having degrees, which isn't the same thing as being intelligent. While it would no doubt help your future prospects if you were to receive some formal education, that's incidental to the matter at hand. You didn't just decide to break into my trunk on a whim, did you?”

“No, I went to holo-library and figured out your real name from archived news reports. I looked up monkey attacks from the late 2000s and found your case. After that, it was easy to figure the rest out.”

“See, that's the kind of intelligence I'm talking about. It's something I can use.”

“Use for what?” Veronica didn't like the idea of being “used” for anything, much less by a woman who seemed to have even more baggage than she did.

“I plan on undertaking a number of business endeavors during my stay here in Painted Mesa, and in order to accomplish it, I'll need a personal assistant to handle my affairs. You have the kind of initiative and intelligence that could be an asset to me.”

“Why should I agree to this?”

“Because I'll pay you substantially more than what you make at the diner and what you make on the Internet. Not only will that improve your immediate standard of living, but you'll be able to amass a nest egg for Brian's university studies and a retirement fund for yourself. If you think it's hard paying for a private K-12 school, imagine how hard it will be to pay for university, which includes tuition, living expenses, and textbooks. I've read that it costs more to attend a state school here in this US that it does to go to Oxford in the UK. Keep in mind that Oxford is one of the oldest and most exclusive schools in the world, and it costs less to go there than it would to go to the University of New Mexico. Of course, if I'm still alive by then, I could probably arrange for Brian to get into Oxford or anywhere else he wants to go, but you'd still need some money for yourself when you get older, since what passes as a social security network in this country is woefully sparse. There are only benefits for you and your family if you work for me.”

Veronica wondered why Carter would assume that she wouldn't be alive in ten or twelve years, but instead said, “What's the deal with you and Yvonne Iverson?”

“What about her?” Carter asked, frowning a bit.

“Weren't you behind her kidnapping?”

“No, I wasn't,” Carter said emphatically, who was still convinced she had done nothing wrong. “I know Peggy Prudence and the other TV personalities would have you believe that I'm some kind of Satanic criminal mastermind, but keep in mind that the Peggy Prudences of the world exist to scare people into thinking that there are serial killers and rapists lurking around every corner, when most violent crimes happen between people of the same race who already know each other. I mean, how can you take a supposed 'legal expert' like Peggy Prudence seriously when ninety percent of her show is devoted to missing white women?”

“Like you?”

“I'm not missing; I know exactly where I am. There's nothing wrong with wanting a change in life. All I'm saying is that Peggy Prudence creates hysteria and prejudice and disguises it as the news, which, in my opinion, disqualifies her and everyone like her from being considered a legitimate source of information. But that's neither here nor there, since the Yvonne Iverson affair is done and over with. The most important question is whether you'll take me up on my offer.”

“Okay, I guess,” Veronica said, although she wondered if she was making the right decision. She hated working for the Pan-American Flapjack House and hated being a web cam girl even more, but fretted over whether working as Carter's right hand woman was any better from a moral perspective. Still, it was very true that she was living a paycheck to paycheck existence and knew that it would only increase as she and Brian got older and both of their needs became more complex.

As Veronica thought about the implications of becoming Carter's personal assistant, Betty came into the room and was pleased to see that her sister seemed to be warming up to their new addition.

“Have you two been having a heart to heart conversation?”

“I suppose,” Carter replied, finding the phrase “heart to heart conversation” extremely distasteful for reasons she couldn't explain.

“Yeah, we've been talking about stuff,” Veronica said. “I'm going to start working with Carter on whatever it is she's planning to do, so I'm going to quit my other job.”

Betty raised an eyebrow at the mention of Veronica's “other job,” since she only knew of the job at the diner. Nonetheless, she didn't press for more details, and went to attend to the twins, who were throwing wooden blocks at each other.


	9. Meanwhile, in Mega City: Cultural Literacy

“Blitz, come on!” Ziv shouted. “I’m ready to start!”

“Do we have to?” Blitzy whined, unwilling to be parted from the video game she was playing with Kiddie in the living room.

“Yes,” Ziv said firmly. “It’s for your own good.”

“Fine,” Blitzy said, pulling out a dog-eared copy of _The Odyssey_ that was being used to prop up the coffee table upon which her video game console sat. She took her book and followed Ziv back to his room, where the two Zulander siblings sat on the bed and began to ruminate over the blinding of the Cyclops, Polyphemus.

“What do you think this section is saying?” Ziv said in his most authoritative voice.

“I don’t know,” Blitzy said, staring blankly at the book.

“Aren’t you going to at least try? You know I have schoolwork of my own that I need to be doing, so I’d like it if you could put in some effort during these tutoring sessions.”

Blitzy glared at Ziv for a moment, before turning her attention to the text for some kind of insight, while he did the same with his own copy of _The Odyssey_. Although he was concerned with Blitzy’s lackluster English grades, Ziv’s decision to help Blitzy with her literature homework was not entirely altruistic; he wanted to improve his cultural literacy, so the next time he met Diana (and he was convinced he would see her again), she would be impressed by his new level of refinement. Since Ziv’s primary intellectual strengths lay in the hard sciences, he was unsure if he could provide the kind of assistance that Blitzy needed to understand literature, but at least his tutoring sessions ensured that she was doing the work at some minimal level.

“I have an idea,” Ziv said. “Let’s think about this scene in a slightly different way.”

“How so?” Blitzy said.

“Think of Polyphemus like a Massive Destructive Bot about to attack, and Odysseus is me,” Ziv began.

“Go on,” Blitzy said, intrigued by the comparison.

“Now Odysseus is trying to sneak past Polyphemus to get the cyclops’s stuff. Think of his provisions as Krang chips. Except Odysseus doesn’t want to destroy his krang chips, because he can use them to keep his army of BOYZZ going.”

Ziv continued to retell the story of Odysseus versus the Cyclops to his enraptured charge, all the while wondering if he would have to adapt every book Blitzy would have to read for English into Zulander-Corp War terms. When he got to the part where Odysseus shoved a wooden stake into Polyphemeus’s eye, a small, wallet-sized photograph fluttered out of his interior jacket pocket and onto Blitzy’s notebook.

“What’s that?” Blitzy said, picking up the photo. “Is that an x-ray?”

“Yes, it is,” Ziv said, feeling his face grow warm.

The x-ray was a gift from Diana, an allusion to a famous scene in one of her favorite books, _The Magic Mountain_ by Thomas Mann. She had given Ziv the x-ray in the expectation that he would understand its significance, but since Ziv had never read _The Magic Mountain_ , the reference went over his head. He had kept the x-ray, which Diana had claimed was the product of an extended hospital stay when she was nine, and often looked at it to remind himself of his lost love. Ziv knew that explaining the provenance and meaning of the x-ray would only lead to needless conflict, so he made up an alternate explanation that straddled the line between truth and falsehood.

“It’s a medical curio I picked up when I was in England,” Ziv said. “Looking at this x-ray makes me wonder about the person who had this done and what they must have gone through.”

This was enough for Blitzy, who knew that her brother could get needlessly sentimental about the most pedestrian of objects, and she didn’t ask any further questions. 

_That was close,_ Ziv thought, hastily putting the x-ray in his pocket, and thankful to have averted another fight. 

*

Back at Hiss's lab at RM Corp City, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, the four thinking green bots, were also embarking upon their own voyages of self-discovery. Since they possessed sentience, they all desired to learn new things and experience the world around them. However, Hiss repeatedly warned them that any attempts to venture outside of the confines of the Corp's R&D unit would lead to their ignominious destruction, which meant that the thinking bots' ability to experience life was highly limited. The four chaffed at their limitations, but tried their best to grow as individuals with the limited resources at their collective disposal.

Jupiter took up cooking, and quickly became a master chef. However, his culinary expertise was wasted on Hiss, who insisted on eating the same things every day (boiled eggs and ham for breakfast, rare steaks for lunch and dinner), and any attempts Jupiter made to show off his new talents were interpreted as insubordination by his creator.

"What is this garbage?" Hiss snarled, when Jupiter handed him a box-shaped plate filled with unfamiliar foodstuffs.

"It's a Japanese bento-style breakfast," Jupiter explained, anxious for his master's approval in spite of his hatred towards him. "It consists of grilled fish, steamed rice, miso soup, and pickled vegetables. It's very healthy. I'm concerned about your health, since eating too much red meat is associated with a number of cancers."

"If I wanted to eat this Oriental crap, I'd tell you!" Hiss shouted, throwing the bento box in Jupiter's face. "Get me my eggs and ham, and don't try to get creative with me in the future."

Jupiter was comforted by his brother bots, who all had stories of mistreatment at the hands of Hiss. Saturn developed an interest in chess, and spent his free time uploading famous chess matches to his memory banks. At first, Hiss was delighted at the possibility of having a chess partner, as the game was one of the few innocent pastimes he enjoyed, but he quickly became frustrated when Saturn refused to lose to massage his ego. After losing to Saturn for the tenth time in a row, Hiss threw the chessboard to the ground, accused the thinking bot of cheating, and refused to play with him again.

Likewise, Uranus pursued pen and ink drawing and watercolor painting, creating detailed pictures of the various creations in Hiss's lab. Uranus painted a pen and ink watercolor portrait of Hiss that almost managed to make the cyborg scientist appear handsome, but his efforts were in vain.

"I made this portrait of you," Uranus said, handing the painting to Hiss for his entertainment and approval. "I hope you like it."

Hiss took one look at the painting, before ripping it to pieces.

"Why would you think I'd want to look at that foolishness all day?" Hiss growled. "If I want to see myself, I'll go look in a mirror."

Neptune was interested in fine literature, and could often be found reading a book during his down time or attempting to write stories of his own. However, Hiss saw no point in reading non-technical literature, and ridiculed Neptune's literary aspirations.

"No one wants to read some crap a bot came up with," Hiss said, when he saw Neptune trying to write a short story on some typing paper. "It's no different than giving a monkey a computer. Stop wasting time and do the calculations I told you to complete."

The ground rules were simple in Hiss's lab; if Hiss didn't like something, that meant that no one in the lab was allowed to like it. Since Hiss's interests were very narrow, the aspects of life that the thinking bots were allowed to experience were similarly limited. The four thinking bots wondered why Hiss would make them sentient if he was going to deny them the very encounters that made consciousness worth having. They hated Hiss's treatment of them, yet they also craved his approval. However, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune had enough sense to realize that Hiss was never going to give them the kind of paternal feelings that they so desperately wanted. If they were going to live life to the fullest, it would have to be without Hiss.


	10. Heroine Addict, Part 1: Carter Dispenses Justice

_December 8, 2026_

_I have finally realized what’s been missing from my life until now; a really bitchy friend who’ll tell it like it is…_

“So after I left St. Peter's Basilica, those scolds at _L'Osservatore Romano_ were complaining how scandalous it was that I dared visit the Holy Father in an outfit that showed so much cleavage,” Carter said.

“Right,” Veronica nodded, sipping her coffee.

“Now, I was thinking that I'll show as much cleavage as I want, whenever and wherever I want, but I couldn't say it like that. Instead, I sent an email to the editor of _L'Osservatore Romano_ – in Italian, of course – that noted what an odd thing it was that they were so concerned about the Holy Father seeing cleavage when he regularly celebrates mass in a chapel with a ceiling that's full of naked people. With me all the pertinent parts are covered, but on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, everything's just hanging out. They printed the letter, and after that I never had any trouble with _L'Osservatore Romano_ , at least not about my choice in attire.”

At the denouement of the story, both Carter and Veronica broke out into peals of laughter.

“That's awesome,” Veronica said, delighting in how her new friend could flout the rules of decency and still manage to come out on top.

Carter had never had a same-aged friend before her arrival in Painted Mesa, and she never would have thought that she could be friends with someone like Veronica, who never finished high school and didn't know Homer the poet from Homer Simpson. Yet, now that Veronica had gained her trust, the two had become inseparable, both in their business and personal lives. Carter chalked up her new friendship to the fact that Veronica understood what it was like to have a past that “respectable people” found distasteful and didn't judge her for her previous life as Lady Frenzy. In turn, Veronica admired Carter's seemingly fearless outlook and her ability to make the things associated with her will into reality, even if it meant adopting tactics that were what some would regard as an ethically problematic.

Their mirth was interrupted when Betty, David, and the twins came back from mass. Although the Rivases were regular mass-goers, they didn't want to impose their beliefs on Carter or feel like they were pressuring her into adopting a new creed. However, the couple was curious about their guest's religious beliefs, and when asked, Carter answered that she believed in the god of Einstein and Spinoza. That was enough for Betty and David, even if they had no idea what Carter was talking about. Veronica hadn't been to a church of any kind since her release from prison, when the senile half-deaf priest who had been in charge of Painted Mesa's only Catholic parish told her that she couldn't volunteer with children because she would be a “bad influence” on her potential charges. That had been enough to sour Veronica on organized religion, and even Betty and David had stopped attending out of solidarity until the offending priest was transferred to another parish.

“I'm so glad Veronica's getting along with Carter now,” Betty said, as she ushered Marisol and Mateo into the house.

“So am I,” David said. “But I don't get how Veronica went from saying Carter was a serial killer, and now they're practically best friends.”

“They seemed to have just talked out their issues, like I hoped they would,” Betty said. “Veronica’s the sort of person where if she likes you, she really loves you, and if she’s hates you, she’ll let you know.”

While Betty and David welcomed the new spirit of concord that had entered their household, Veronica received an unexpected phone call back in the kitchen.

“Veronica, it's me, Rosemary,” the voice on the other end said before Veronica could say anything. “I need your help.”

“Sure thing. What do you want?” Veronica could hear crying and shouting in the background, and had an inkling about what the problem was.

“Me and the kids are locked in the bathroom, and James is threatening to kill us. He got angry about the divorce and said he wouldn't let me go.”

“Shouldn't you call the tribal police?” Veronica said, feeling her hand on the phone shaking and her skin becoming wet.

“I tried, but it could take ages for them to get here,” Rosemary wailed. “I don't know what to do.”

Based on the few answers Veronica had given combined with what she knew about Rosemary's domestic woes, Carter figured out what the phone call was about. She abruptly snatched Veronica's cell phone out of her hand and said, “This is Carter. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you, Carter,” Rosemary said. “I...” The call ended in mid-sentence, followed by the sound of a crash and a series of screams before the line went completely dead.

Carter got up from the table and purposefully went to her car. Figuring out what her friend intended to do, Veronica followed and rode shotgun, trying in vain to talk Carter out of her scheme.

“You shouldn't be doing this,” Veronica warned.

“I've done things far stupider than this,” Carter said calmly.

“Yeah, but back then you at least had the Corp's army to back you up. What do you have now? Nothing.”

“I attribute most of my successes not to brute force but force of personality,” Carter assured her. “Just give me the directions to Rosemary's house.”

Veronica knew she couldn't talk Carter out of something once she put her mind to it, and did as she was told.

Despite her statement of confidence, Carter knew that what she was doing was objectively stupid, and worried about the potential outcome of her intervention into Rosemary's private life might be. It was one thing for her to backtalk Vincent Montrose, because back then she was acting from a place of authority, as Lady Frenzy, executive vice president of the RM Corp. Even as Countess Diana LaFrenz, she had a certain social and political capital that forced other people to respect her, regardless of their personal opinion of her or her “wicked parents.” In Painted Mesa, she was just Diana Carter, some weird white chick. However, Carter reasoned that she had managed to endure a number of dangerous and stupid situations in the past and had always come out on top, or at least, no worse for wear, and this would be no different. If she was killed, at least the media would say, “Lady Frenzy, killed saving woman from abuser.” Or more realistically, “Crazy white woman killed after interfering in someone else's business.”

Carter put these thoughts out of her mind as she pulled into the crude driveway in front of Rosemary's trailer. The scrubby lawn contained some cacti and other desert plants, and a number of tacky lawn ornaments, including a flock of pink plastic flamingos that Carter assumed were supposed to represent Rosemary and her children. She noticed that the little flamingos were riddled with laser holes and the mama flamingo's head was cut off, which did not bode well for what might be inside the trailer. Carter walked up to the door and knocked, as Veronica trailed behind her at a safe distance. When nobody replied after several attempts, Carter decided to kick down the door, reasoning that she could easily pay for another one.

“Should you be kicking down doors while pregnant?” Veronica said, outwardly annoyed at Carter's wanton disregard for Rosemary's property, but secretly impressed with her companion's fearlessness.

“None of the books I've read about the subject said you couldn't,” Carter shrugged.

“This is stupid,” Veronica reiterated. “We need to call the police.”

“Rosemary herself said that the tribal police is practically a skeleton force. If we wait for them to arrive, she'll be dead by then. This is one of those times when we need to take the law into our own hands; self-defense is a wonderful thing.”

“Hello?” Carter shouted as she walked through the doorway. “Rosemary? It's Carter.” The state of the interior of the trailer was even worse than the exterior: large holes in the walls, scorch marks on the floor, lewd graffiti on the walls, and smoldering piles of items that had recently been on fire. She could hear the sound of a man screaming in a language that was unfamiliar to her, and a child crying. Carter walked into the living room, which was filled with children's toys, Disney memorabilia, and posters of vintage cars. Amidst the clutter was Rosemary and her daughters, who were all cowering together in a huddle, while a short, shaggy haired man waved a laser pistol wildly in the air in one hand, and held a crying Ford tightly with his other arm. The presence of fresh laser holes in the ceiling, walls, and roof suggested that the pistol had been fired quite recently, and that its owner was preparing to shift his attention to human targets.

“Mr. Comancho, I assume?” Carter asked in an elevated voice to catch the man's attention.

“Who the hell are you?” the presumptive Mr. Comancho screamed. Carter noticed that his eyes were red and his nose twitching, indicating that he had taken one or more drugs quite recently. “Is you the cops?”

“No, I'm not the police,” Carter said calmly. “I don't really care for law enforcement in general. I believe the correct phrasing of what you meant to say was 'Are you affiliated with the police?' I can see subject-verb agreement is not one of your strong points. Anyway, I'm here to tell you that Rosemary doesn't want you coming around anymore because you're a violent, abusive stoner who can't hold a job in the legitimate economy, so if you know what's good for you, you'll put the gun away, let the toddler go, and then get lost.”

James turned away from his terrified family and pointed the gun at Carter. “I'll blow your pretty head off, whitey, if you don't back off. I swear to god, I will.”

Carter stared down the barrel of the gun without the slightest bit of fear, sighed, and said, “Get that gun out of my face, runt.” Without warning, she deftly kicked the gun out of James' hand, and it fell to the ground with an unceremonious thud. Before James could even register what had happened, Carter grabbed the gun off the floor and shot him in the kneecap. Blood exploded all over the room, as James collapsed backwards in a pathetic heap. Ford rolled out of James' grip, and scooted behind Carter's legs for protection. Rosemary, the girls, and Veronica (who was still watching from her hiding place behind the corner) watched agog, barely able to comprehend what had just transpired.

“Bitch, you shot me!” James cried, clutching his ruined knee.

“No one cares what you have to say,” Carter said, grabbing a stuffed Donald Duck toy off the floor and shoving it in James' mouth to silence him. “Veronica, do you have my purse?”

Veronica gingerly came into the room, and handed Carter her purse. Carter opened the purse, pulled out several rock climbing ropes, and proceeded to tie up James' hands and feet.

“Why do you have rope in your purse?”

“My grandfather always said, 'Never pass up a chance to tie a good bowline knot or to have a cold Guinness.' While Guinness would be a pain to cart around, ropes are much more portable, and you'd be surprised how many opportunities come up to use them. While we're on the topic, could you get me an old t-shirt or something of the sort to stop the bleeding of this knee wound? There's already enough blood splatter around here, and blood is such a chore to clean.”

Rosemary, still in a daze, removed the t-shirt Ford was wearing and handed it to Carter, who skillfully wrapped it around James' knee. James himself was struggling to get the Donald Duck toy out of his mouth, but Carter had shoved it in so far that there was no way he could remove it, especially with his hands restrained. Satisfied with her work, Carter sat down on the couch opposite James, and propped her feet up on his stomach.

“Being virtuous is such hard work,” Carter observed, while James continued his futile attempts at escape. “Do you happen to have any Perrier on ice?”

“No, but I have some generic cola,” Rosemary said, still in a daze.

“I'll just stick with plain water then.” Carter continued making banal small talk with Rosemary and Veronica, continuing to use James as an ottoman, until the tribal police arrived, roughly twenty minutes after the conflict had come to an unexpected end. The officers came into the now ruined house expecting to find a pile of bodies, but instead found Carter sitting on the couch, sipping some water out of a Mickey Mouse mug with her feet resting on a hogtied James Comancho.

“Ms. Carter shot daddy!” Mercedes said, running to an older man whose badge identified him as the sheriff.

“I see,” the sheriff said, taking Mercedes in his arms, leading Carter to assume that he was Rosemary's grandfather.

“ _Tia_ Carter is a hewro,” Ford said in his babyish lisp.

“Yes, I shot Mr. Comancho,” Carter said, getting up from the couch. “But I can assure you it was completely out of self-defense.”

The sheriff looked around at the bizarre scene and seemed unsure about what to think. “Are you that white woman Rosemary befriended?”

“Since I don't think Rosemary knows any other white women, I'm going to take a chance and say yes,” Carter said. “I'm Diana Carter, Esquire. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, although I would have preferred for our first meeting to have occurred under less sordid circumstances.”

“Pleased to meet you too,” Sheriff Blackhawk said, squinting a bit as he examined Carter. Like most of the people in Painted Mesa, he felt like he had seen her somewhere, but didn't know why. “Sheriff Winston Blackhawk.”

“Charmed, I'm sure,” Carter replied.

“Do you mind coming to the police station so I can interview you?”

“Not at all. What’s going to happen to what’s his face?”

“An ambulance is coming, but it will take some time, because of the rural character of the reservation. Some of my men will stay with him.”

*

After Sheriff Blackhawk took her statement and absolved her of any wrongdoing in the shooting of James Comancho, Carter stayed with Rosemary and her children while Veronica went back to the Rivas home to look after Brian. The damage James had wrought to the trailer during his rampage made the structure unlivable, meaning Rosemary had move herself and the children into her grandfather's trailer. Upon arriving at Sheriff Blackhawk's trailer and seeing the wide assortment of toys, and neat rows of child-sized cots, Carter realized that Rosemary's domestic problems were such that her grandfather's residence was a frequent refuge for her and her family.

“You'll have to sleep on the floor,” Sheriff Blackhawk told Carter.

“That's fine,” Carter said. “They say sleeping on the floor is good for your back, although I'm not entirely sure who 'they' are.”

“This may sound rude, Ms. Carter, but who exactly are you?” Sheriff Blackhawk asked.

“It's such a complicated question that I don't even know where to begin,” Carter said. “Identity is a very existential thing...”

Sensing that he wasn't going to get anywhere, Sheriff Blackhawk said, “I see that you have some secrets you plan to keep close to your chest. Fine, I won't pry. Veronica seems to trust you, and I know she has an excellent bullshit detector, even if Rosemary doesn't. And anyone who saves the life of my granddaughter and great-grandchildren is a friend to me.”

Carter smiled and nodded, relieved that Sheriff Blackhawk was content with her mystery.

*

_December 9, 2026_

_Today I watched some of those Disney movies that I have heard so much about. To say I was underwhelmed by what I saw would be an extreme understatement…_

While Veronica returned home to tend to Brian, Carter stayed with Rosemary and her children at Sheriff Blackhawk’s trailer to provide moral support. Carter spent the next eight hours binge-watching Disney films with Rosemary, and their viewing sessions extended far into the night, long after the children had gone to bed. Although Carter could appreciate the movies on an artistic level, she thought the plots were bowdlerized to the point of being content-free. She had been raised reading the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale compilations (in German, of course), with all of the gratuitous violence intact, and watching a version of Snow White that didn't end with the wicked stepmother dancing herself to death in red-hot iron shoes seemed to completely change the meaning of the story. Carter regarded the Disney version of _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ that had no sex, violence, or anti-clericalism to be an egregious offense to literary taste. However, Carter kept her critical thoughts to herself, and continued watching with polite interest, while Rosemary sang all the songs and repeated her favorite lines of dialogue back to the screen. She was surprised that Rosemary's very vocal brand of audience participation didn't wake up the children or Sheriff Blackhawk, which led her to assume that they were all used to this sort of behavior.

“I have a feeling that this isn't a historically accurate depiction of the events in question,” Carter observed, as she watched _Pocahontas_.

“It's not, but it's the only Disney movie with an Indian princess,” Rosemary said. “I know it's wrong on a bunch of levels, but it's all I've got. That and the ‘What Makes the Red Man Red?’ sequence from _Peter Pan_ , which I always skip out of principle.”

Rosemary burst into tears again. By this time, Carter had become accustomed to Rosemary's constant crying jags, but felt that it would be in everyone's interest if she could somehow learn to cry less.

"I'm going to get you the works of Seneca, which I've found very helpful in my own life," Carter said. "I want you to read it all the way through, and if there are any parts you find confusing, just ask me."

Rosemary nodded tearfully. Carter was certain that Rosemary probably thought Seneca was a member of the Seneca Nation that lived in New York State, but decided that didn't matter; good advice was good advice, no matter the source, as Rosemary would soon learn.

“Something I learned a long time ago is that if you're not in charge of your own narrative, someone else will tell it for you,” Carter continued. “Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the Navajo haven't had control over their narrative in almost two hundred years, right?”

“That's true,” Rosemary agreed, wiping her eyes on her shirt sleeves.

“Veronica told me that you've done some writing, so maybe you could introduce a narrative that would provide a Navajo perspective.”

“She says my stories are no better than fanfiction,” Rosemary lamented.

“Has Veronica ever read your stories?” Carter said.

“No, but...”

“Then how would she know if they're good or not? The truth of the matter is that bad books get published all the time. In fact, bad books not only get published, but they win literary awards and get made into profitable movie franchises. I don't mean to sound snobbish, but I feel confident that I've read many more books than Veronica, and have a better idea of what merits literary value, to say nothing of commercial value. If you give me one of your manuscripts, I'll review it and find you an agent and a publisher.” Carter neglected to mention that she owned a major publishing house and could get any manuscript she wanted published, but she decided that was an unimportant detail.

“You can do that?”

“I can do many things, things that you could scarcely imagine.”

Rosemary looked like she wanted to ask what kind of “things,” Carter was referring to, but instead she went to one of the plastic bags containing the possessions she had been able to salvage from her trailer, and pulled out a smaller bag that contained a number of flash drives.

“Now that you've finally got James out of your life, I think you should use this opportunity to work on yourself, just like I've decided to do with myself,” Carter said.

“Yeah, I should,” Rosemary said, taking a Mickey Mouse flash drive and handing it to Carter.

“I'm going to help you edit your manuscript and get you another job.”

“But I have a job.”

“A job that probably violates numerous labor and civil rights laws.”

“I can't get anything else; all I have is a high school diploma, and even that was torture to get finished.”

“That doesn't matter. Give your boss two weeks' notice. Or better yet, tell him you're quitting.”

“I don't know...That doesn't sound very nice.”

“And that is exactly your problem. Your empathy is wasted on someone like your boss who has continually exposes you to a racially hostile work environment, yet expects you to feel like he's doing you a favor. Don't you see something wrong with that line of thinking?”

“But I can't get anything else.”

“I'm giving you something else, and putting you on the road to being a published writer. Now what's on this flash drive?”

“Some short stories, and my novels. I've written about five of 'em. Novels, that is.”

“Which one do you think is the best one?”

" _The Owl Seeker_. It's sort of based on my grandfather's life as a tribal cop.”

“Great. We’ll start with that one, and I’ll also work to get some of these short stories published in literary magazines. However, I'm surprised you own a laptop, since computer ownership in this area seems to be low.”

“It's a used computer I bought at a garage sale. I just use it to write with, because there's no wifi around here, except at the reservation library.”

“Have you always lived on the reservation?”

“No, for a while I lived with this Mormon couple...” Rosemary seemed hesitant to continue, but realizing that she had brought the subject up herself, she continued with her narrative. “Until I was eight, it was just me and my mom with my grandpa helping out a lot. My dad committed suicide when I was three, so I don't remember him at all.”

“Why?”

“Why'd dad commit suicide? Why wouldn't he? Reservation life is bleak even in the best of times: unemployment, alcoholism, poverty, drug abuse. Almost every family around here has someone who committed suicide. It's just a fact of life. My dad was the bass player in a Grateful Dead cover band, and he met my mom when she tried to join the band singing the Donna Jean Godchaux role. There was lots of drama about it, and my dad left the band out of solidarity with her. However, I've heard people say that he was never the same after Jerry Garcia died, and that's why he later committed suicide. It seems strange to kill yourself over a rock singer you've never met, but I'm sure people have committed suicide over things even more trivial than that. Anyway, mom cleaned white peoples' houses in the city – this was before the Bot Revolution, of course – and worked nights as a security guard. I was by myself most of the time and had to spend most of my time inside, because my asthma made it hard for me to play outside. So I ended up reading a lot, because that's all I could do. When I was eight, my mom was shot and killed by the police, because she supposedly shoplifted a case of beer from a gas station and threatened some officers with a pair of scissors. I never believed it, because I know my mom never drank, since she knew how alcohol messes people up on the reservation. Plus, the police never found any beer in her car, in our house, or on her. But the news just said she was a 'drunk Indian' who got what she deserved, and the case was closed.”

“After that, I was put in foster care and that's when the white Mormon couple took me in,” Rosemary continued. “I wasn't supposed to be there, because Indian kids are supposed to remain in their tribes and grandpa wanted to adopt me, but there are still a lot of people who think that the best thing you can do for an Indian kid is make her not be Indian anymore. The Munsons – that was the name of the foster family – were very strict and very strange. There were three boys, three girls, and the parents. It was like what _The Brady Bunch_ would be like if everyone was uptight and joyless. Mr. and Mrs. Munson wouldn't let me leave the house, except to go to school and to the Mormon church. I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone outside the family, and when I went to the sacrament meeting, they would call me their 'little Lamenite girl,' like I wasn't even there. They made me their servant and I had to do all the housework before school and look after the younger kids in the evening. Even worse, they wouldn't let me read anymore, because they thought almost all decent fiction was 'immoral' and 'immodest.' I would sneak books come from the school library, old stuff like Dickens and that _Wind in the Willows_ guy, books no normal person would consider immoral, but when Mr. and Mrs. Munson found out, they would beat me. I stayed with the Munsons for about a year, when grandpa was finally able to retrieve me and bring me back to the reservation. The Munsons pitched a fit about it, because they had the idea that they would adopt and convert me, but the law was on grandpa's side.”

“I had never had many friends on the reservation, and things got even worse when I got back from the Munsons' place. The other kids said I was 'white' and not a real Indian for having spent all that time at the white foster home and because I read 'white people books.' I doubted myself and I think that's what attracted me to James, because I thought he was a 'real Indian,' at least in terms of skin color and being tough and hard. I felt that being with a 'real Indian' that I could be what I thought I wasn't. But I always had the nagging feeling that James was a loser and not the kind of guy I should be with, but I thought I could be a good influence on him and make him make better choices. Of course, that's absurd; if you want to completely change a person you're involved with, you should probably just find someone who's already like that. Plus, if James is a 'real Indian' that doesn't really bode well for the rest of us.”

“Tomorrow morning, you need to file a restraining order against James so this doesn’t happen again,” Carter said.

“I don’t know,” Rosemary said, furrowing her brow. “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

“The man pointed a gun at your head, threatened the lives of you and your children, and rendered your trailer uninhabitable, and you’re concerned that filing a restraining order isn’t ‘nice’?” Carter said incredulously. “Your priorities are misplaced. I’ve had to file a restraining order myself against a controlling ex.”

“Really?”

“Yes. When I was a young, headstrong sixteen-year-old law school student, I fell in lust with some German poser who appeared in the right place at the right time…”

“Wait, you were in law school when you were sixteen?” Rosemary interrupted.

“Isn’t everyone?” Carter said evasively. “Anyway, I eventually came to my senses and ejected him from my life, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

 “I’ve been there before,” Rosemary sighed.

“And then,” Carter continued. “I pushed him out of my window when he tried to break into my house. Years later, I got back at him when I bought his family’s chemical company in a hostile takeover and added it to my financial portfolio. It was a grand day for me.”

“I don’t think I’ve been there before,” Rosemary said, puzzled by the unexpected turn Carter’s narrative had taken.

“That’s not the point,” Carter said. “What I’m trying to say is that there’s nothing wrong with filing a restraining order to protect yourself and your family if that’s what needs to be done, even if the person in question is the father of your children. David has been much more of a father to your kids than James ever was, so it’s not like you’re depriving them of a male role model. Most importantly, what kind of behavior is he modeling for the children? He’s telling the girls that they should allow themselves to be a doormat and a punching bag, and Ford that aggression is acceptable towards women.”

“It’s true,” Rosemary said before bursting into tears. “My bad choices have ruined the kids for life! The girls will drop out of high school and marry drug dealers, and Ford will hang out by the train tracks huffing glue and selling marijuana.”

“No, your kids aren’t ruined, because you’re going to show them that it’s possible for a woman to pick herself up and turn her life around,” Carter said, as she rooted around in her purse for some tissues. “What’s your work history? Have you always worked at the diner?”

“No,” Rosemary said. “I tried to enlist in the army after high school, but I failed boot camp. Not because of my asthma, which had improved a lot by then, but because I kept crying when the drill sergeant yelled at me.”

“What made you think you could pass boot camp when everything makes you cry?” Carter couldn't think of anyone less suited to be in the military than Rosemary.

“Because the Navajo are a traditionally a martial people, and a lot of us have served in the military with distinction,” Rosemary explained.

“That doesn't mean that you, Rosemary Comancho, are suited for that lifestyle,” Carter said. “You're an artist, not a soldier.”

“I know,” Rosemary said. “But being an artist doesn't pay the bills. I wish I could be more like you, Ms. Carter. You're so fierce.”

“Oh, trust me, you don't want to be like me,” Carter said. “I'm a pretty gigantic mess myself.”

“How so? You've got looks, talent, real education, and obviously, a lot more money that I do, even if Mr. Carter left you.”

“First of all, Mr. Carter did not leave me, so let's get that straight,” Carter said brusquely. “Secondly, my family life was extremely messy.”

“Why?”

Carter didn't really want to delve into the particulars of her past, but since Rosemary had poured out her own tortured autobiography, she felt like she should reciprocate. “The couple that spawned me – I hesitate to call them my parents, since that would imply we had some kind of relationship – were best described as omnisexual erotic vagrants. From their perspective, I was a mistake they wanted to spend as little time seeing or thinking about as possible. I spend most of my childhood sequestered on an estate in Washington state with a tutor. That's why I know so much, because I was in a pressure cooker environment where there was nothing for me to do but study. A couple of times a year I'd see them, but the egg donor was so caught up in her debauchery that she my characterized my presence as a cramp in her proverbial style, not to mention a reminder of her impending decrepitude. Meanwhile, the sperm donor would show me off sometimes, like a show dog or a prize horse, but didn't do anything remotely paternal. The egg donor had a monkey that she treated more like a daughter than her actual daughter. Just think of it; she treated her monkey like a child, and her child like a monkey. Now those are some misplaced priorities, don't you think?”

“So what happened?” Rosemary asked, her eyes watering again.

“They died from what is often referred to as death by misadventure,” Carter said, trying to sound casual about an event that still haunted her dreams. “Specifically, they died of heroin overdoses. Then after that, it was discovered that I didn’t really exist, at least not from a legal standpoint, so I put in the detention shelter for six months until the government could figure out what to do with me. I was deported to Great Britain, because that’s where my paternal grandfather lived, but I could have just as easily been sent to France or Sweden if I had had any living relatives in those countries. I lived with my grandfather for about five or six years until he died. During that period, I went to Oxford and got degrees in mathematics, although I didn’t really leave my estate once my grandfather suffered his final illness. Then I was brought here to get a law degree and worked in business until my pregnancy forced me to make some changes in my life. And here I am today.”

“Wow, that’s quite a story,” Rosemary said, as she wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I feel like we have so much in common, even though we're from totally different backgrounds,”. “I feel like singing _It's a Small World_...”

“Please don't,” Carter said, who had had quite enough of all things Disney.


	11. Heroine Addict, Part 2: Doing the Right Thing the Wrong Way

Even before she foiled James' vengeful plot against Rosemary and her children, Carter had resolved that her new life would be characterized by “being good.” Carter knew that much of Blitzy's dislike of her stemmed from the girl's opinion that she was “evil,” a view that Carter herself considered to be symptomatic of a naïve, rigid, and highly unrealistic worldview. Still, that perspective was what led to the unjust kidnapping of Ziv, the destruction of Whigby Hall's war monument, and her nervous breakdown, regardless of whether the opinion in question was objectively true or not. She knew that even Ziv believed she was “evil” to some extent, and she decided that she was going to prove the doubting Zulander siblings wrong. Much like how Paradim telling her that she had no business being pregnant only made her want to continue her pregnancy even more, the Zulanders' belief in her questionable moral character inspired her to “be good” so that when their paths inevitably crossed again in the indeterminate future, she could rub her awe-inspiring virtue in their faces.

That her motives for “being good” were not entirely altruistic was not a concern for Carter, because she adopted Aristotle's view that virtue involved doing the right action at the right time on a consistent basis until it became a habit. Though her motives for the time being might be construed as being self-serving, Carter concluded that as long as the people she was trying to help experience a net boon in terms of happiness and security, what difference did it make as to why she was doing it?

Carter had begun her campaign of virtue while she was still decamping at the bunker in the Owlshead Mountains, arranging for large, anonymous donations to be made to the elementary school whose students she and Dr. Hiss had endangered in the Building 8 scheme, to the indigenous South American tribe whose land the Corp tried to confiscate, and to the public library system in Santa Marta. Carter didn't think anything she had done as Lady Frenzy was wrong per se; as with other periods of her life, she had performed actions as Lady Frenzy that outsiders would view as unethical, if not illegal, but to her, these acts were justified given the context under which they were executed, much like the questionable actions she had done as a child, like being her parents' designated driver or playing high-stakes poker in Monte Carlo. Despite her clear conscience with regard to her past actions, she knew that other people (i.e., the Zulanders) had a different view, and she was eager to prove them wrong. Since Carter had more money than she knew what to do with, she assumed that the best way to “be good” would be to share her wealth with the financially disadvantaged.

As promised, Carter sent Rosemary's manuscript to her publishing house. Rosemary assumed that Carter was going to send the manuscript to an agent, who would then spend a year or so shopping it around to a publisher, but Carter had other ideas; she sent the manuscript to the head of her publishing house with a note that indicated that she had personally chosen this project for publication and that no expense was to be spared in publicizing it when it was ready for release. An agent was subsequently chosen to represent Rosemary, who received an official letter in the mail roughly two weeks after she gave Carter the manuscript, informing her that she not only had an agent, but a publishing contract to boot.

“I can't believe Rosemary actually landed a writing contract,” Betty said, after Rosemary burst into her house, screaming and waving her letter around for all to see. “I haven't seen her this excited since _The Lion King_ was re-released with VR enhancement.”

“I even got an advance,” Rosemary said, showing her friends the check that had accompanied her letter.

“What are you going to do with it?” Veronica said.

“I need a new house, but I'm not sure this will cover it, especially since I don't know if I'll be able to pay the advance back,” Rosemary said nervously. “I guess the best thing to do at this point is to just put in my savings account at the reservation credit union. Now that I think about it, I only have about $20 in there, so I definitely need to work on building up a nest egg. As long as grandpa can allow me and the kids to stay with him, housing shouldn’t be an immediately problem. As part of the contract, I’m getting a weekly check to work on the novel, and its way more than I got at the diner. At this rate, I should be able to buy another trailer in no time.”

Unbeknowst to Rosemary, Betty, and Veronica, the weekly check was coming from Carter herself, who reasoned that she was not only helping Rosemary along in her self-actualization process, but improving the American literary scene by allowing a fresh new voice to emerge. Carter rationalized that the setup was not unlike the relationship between Richard Wagner and his patron Prince Ludwig II of Bavaria, except that Rosemary didn’t know the identity of her patron and Carter didn’t suffer from “madness.” Neither Rosemary, Betty, nor Veronica knew anything about how the publishing industry worked, and so they had no reason to doubt whether it was common practice for new writers to receive a weekly check.

“You don’t need another trailer,” Carter said. “You should look into Peristylium Homes. It's a company that makes affordable solar powered modular homes.”

“I've never heard of it before,” Rosemary said.

“Peristylium Homes are quite common in Europe, but they're only just beginning to enter the American market. Since you live right in the middle of the desert, you could get much better cell usage than the average consumer living in, say, Scotland or Germany. The house would practically pay for itself.”

Carter neglected to mention that Peristylium Homes was a subsidiary of LF Tech, the company that she herself owned, but she considered that detail to be irrelevant to the matter at hand. The products offered by Peristylium Homes were clean, modern, and affordable, and as far as Carter was concerned, that was all that mattered. Carter thought that Rosemary's house could be a model home that could be used to encourage other residents of Painted Mesa to upgrade to Peristylium-style residences, once they had the income to do so.

“They look so modern,” Rosemary said, looking at the sleek, airy models on the Peristylium Homes website on her phone. “Like houses from the not so distant future.”

“In a couple of months or so, you would have enough to make a down payment, and the credit union can probably help you with financing,” Carter said.

“I should look into getting one too, now that I have a job that pays actual money,” Veronica said, looking over Rosemary’s shoulder to examine the floorplans. “No offense Betty, but me and Brian need our own space.”

“Maybe David and I could afford one too, with the increased income we’ve been getting from being on Carter’s payroll,” Betty mused.

As Betty, Veronica, and Rosemary discussed their housing options, Carter congratulated herself on her virtue. Not only was she doing good, she was making a profit doing so. What could be better than that?

*

With Rosemary's dream of being a published writer becoming a reality, Carter decided to intervene in the lives of her erstwhile hosts. She knew that Betty and David worried about their children's educational future, and felt she could ensure the twins a spot at Woodburn Academy. The school was probably getting ready to make decisions about the 2027-2028 school year, which meant it was the perfect time for Carter to use her influence on Mateo and Marisol’s behalf.

“Hello, I'd like to speak to Headmaster Purvis,” Carter said.

“Who may I ask is calling?” Purvis said.

“Diana Carter. I need to talk to you about two prospective students, Mateo and Marisol Rivas.”

“Don't believe I know them. They sound a bit...ethnic to be students at Woodburn, if you understand what I mean.”

“Oh, I know exactly what you mean,” Carter said, interpreting the headmaster's words to mean that he had probably rejected the Rivas children's applications, simply after looking at the names. “Which is why I'm calling. If you accept the Rivases into your august institution, I'll pay for the tuition for both of them upfront. That means no scholarships or any other forms of assistance on your part. Furthermore, I would also pay for Brian Ramos' tuition, and I'll throw in a bonus renovation for your library and gym because I'm in a good mood today.”

“Who are you again?”

“You could say I'm the patron for the Rivas children and Brian Ramos.”

“The son of that stumpy Mexican woman? Hmm, yes, I know of him. Nice boy, in spite of the mother...”

Carter didn't appreciate a nouveau riche poser like Purvis calling Veronica a “stumpy Mexican woman,” but she remembering the task at hand, she continued, “To further answer your question, I'm from old money, and I've recently made the decision to invest in human capital, and the extended Rivas family are lucky enough to be the recipients of my largess.”

“I've never heard of any Carters.”

“When I mean 'old money,' I mean seventeenth century money. Landed aristocracy type of money. Eton and Oxbridge money.”

“You don't have an Oxbridge accent.”

“I have many accents, my dear Mr. Purvis. The one you hear is the merely the one I'm choosing to use at the moment. As it is, Americans tend to be impressed by any British accent, whether it's Received Pronunciation or Cockney, which further makes the nature of my accent irrelevant. You say you've never heard of me. That's very good, because the people who you never hear about are the ones who run the world. You probably think that you're some big-shot, and you probably are in this relatively small pond of New Mexico, but you're nothing compared to me. I'm rich in a way you could scarcely imagine, whereas you are merely well-to-do. But I'm not trying to lord my status over you, I'm here to make you a deal, a deal that would benefit you just as much as the children in question. You get a new library and gym, and the addition of two minority children that would create the illusion that you actually care about social mobility. I could be a very good friend to Woodburn Academy, if you let me.”

There was momentary silence on the other end of the line, while Purvis thought about Carter's offer.

“I suppose that a new library and gym would help attract the best students,” Purvis said thoughtfully. “The best students of all races,” he added hastily.

“Of course,” Carter said. “It's all about the children, isn't it?”

“Yes, well, we'll accept the two Rivas children, and I'll expect the first of your payments next week.”

“You can look forward to it,” Carter assured him.

“Will I be allowed the privilege of a private meeting with you, Ms. Carter?” Purvis said, his voice hinting at a desire to have a relationship with her that she would never give him.

“I'm afraid not, Mr. Purvis,” Carter said, eager to end the conversation. She was familiar with that tone of voice and had no intention of becoming anything other than an unseen donor to Purvis. “You can look forward to the first payment for the library, as well as the tuition checks for Brian Ramos and the Rivas children for the 2027-2028 academic year. Good day.”

Carter hung up the phone and basked in the glory of her virtue. Of course, she knew some delicate souls might object to the fact that she had essentially bribed the school into taking Mateo and Marisol, but she didn’t consider her monetary inducement to Purvis to be unethical in the slightest. She assumed that the other hopeful candidates to Woodburn Academy had other options in terms of education, whereas the Rivases only had whatever opportunities she could wrangle for them. These sorts of backroom deals, unfair as they might seem, were how the world worked, whether in class-conscious England or the supposedly more egalitarian United States, and if the system was going to be manipulated, at least Carter was doing it to help some people who would ordinarily be screwed by said system.

Several weeks after her phone conversation with Headmaster Purvis, Woodburn Academy announced its plans to build a state of the art hololibrary and VR gymnasium, which would be called the Thomas P. LaFrenz V Memorial Hololibrary and the Thomas P. LaFrenz V Memorial Physical Education Center. No one in the extended Woodburn Academy community cared to ask who Thomas P. LaFrenz V was; all that mattered was that the school was getting more and better amenities.

*

Having solved the Rivas children's educational future, Carter decided to tackle a more complex problem, namely the persistent joblessness that afflicted Painted Mesa. Just as Ms. Schelling had predicted seventeen years earlier, mass robotization had led to chronic structural unemployment among the working poor. It was something Carter knew about intellectually, but now that she was in Painted Mesa, the negative effects of the Bot Revolution became clear. While the Rivases were objectively poor, they were considerably better off than most of the denizens of Painted Mesa, because they had their own business in the legitimate economy (at least, until Carter bought it from them) and a stable family unit. Carter wondered if the very idea of having a conventional job had been rendered obsolete by the Bot Revolution, but she knew that the United States government wasn't about to pay the denizens of Painted Mesa a basic income any time soon. Therefore, Carter concluded that the best way to “be good” would be to create jobs. The state of human capital in Painted Mesa was low, but Carter was convinced that it could be improved with a little investment on her end.

The first step in Carter's plan was to give an anonymous $75 million donation to the Painted Mesa band of Navajo Indians, the tribe that Rosemary and her family belonged. Although the donation was practically spare change for Carter, from the tribe's perspective, $75 million was a much-appreciated windfall. Based on what they had heard from Sheriff Blackhawk, the tribal elders had some vague idea that Rosemary's weird white friend had some knowledge of business and was independently wealthy, and thought she might have some advice about what to do with their unexpected bonanza.

“Well, what do you think the community needs?” Carter asked the tribal elder board. She had been binge reading international development literature in preparation for the meeting, and the newest trend in that field was to simply give poor people money and trust that they knew what they needed.

“The most pressing need is probably health, both mental and physical,” Chief Sandhill said. “The community clinic can only offer the bare minimum in terms of general care and wellness and nothing in terms of mental health.”

“Okay, so the logical thing to do would be the spend the money on a state of the art health center,” Carter said, writing down the proceedings of the meeting on a legal pad.

“Assuming this health center is built, I don't see how we could maintain it into the future, given how limited our tax base is,” Elder Baxton said nervously.

“That won't be a problem,” Carter said. “The key is to apply for grants from philanthropic organizations. The LF Institute for Human Development for should give you all the money you need to keep the center going indefinitely.”

Carter didn't mention that she owned the LF Institute for Human Development, as she regarded that as another one of those pesky details that didn't concern anyone but herself. Granted, the LF Institute for Human Development was originally developed as a personal tax haven and had never done anything remotely charitable, but Carter told herself that the money that had been allocated to the Institute had been allowed to accumulate because she had never found a cause for which she wanted to use it. Now that she had taken an interest in the people of Painted Mesa, the LF Institute for Human Development would do the work it had always been meant to do.

*

In addition to spearheading the campaign to build the health center on the Indian Reservation, Carter also invested in Painted Mesa proper, providing funds for everything from medical care to public education. Like the money she had donated to the Navajos, her gifts to the denizens of Painted Mesa were anonymous, but she was invariably in charge of planning the logistics for the projects, because her business and leadership skills were apparent to everyone. Carter put David in charge of remodeling the former Rub a Dub Pub and Lavanderia into an office complex, while Betty was her “lifestyle consultant” who helped her navigate her various pregnancy-related concerns. The couple earned far more being on Carter’s payroll than they ever had running the laundromat/pub and had no regrets about selling their business or inviting her into their home.

While the Rivases enjoyed their new wealth, Carter began drafting a plan to reconfigure Painted Mesa as an eco-tourist destination. Painted Mesa was full of breathtaking natural beauty that she was certain the monied class would pay to experience. Since travelers liked the human touch, tourism was the perfect industry for a population that was lacking in formal education. Carter believed that Painted Mesa in its current form was much like Las Vegas before it became an entertainment mecca – small, rural, and poor – and simply needed the right kind of investments for the area to reach its full potential. The only problem with Carter's plan was that Painted Mesa was filled with gangs and drug cartels to the point where nightly laser battles were commonplace occurrences. Carter was unfazed by the violence, but knew that tourists wouldn't want to pay good money to wander through a war zone, the question of how to make the streets of Painted Mesa safer remained an open question.

In the meantime, Carter established a local micro-credit firm to provide small loans for the locals to establish their own businesses. To advertise her initiative, Carter bought some ad space on buses and billboards, and gave speeches, both formal and impromptu, at storefront churches, barbershops, beauty salons, and street corners. At first, most people thought the speechifying Carter was nuts (she was known as “the weird white woman,” after all), and chased her away, calling her _blanquita_ , gringo, and cracker. A lesser woman might have given up after such treatment, but Carter had been called far worse as Lady Frenzy and Diana LaFrenz, and persevered. Her fearlessness was duly noted by the denizens of Painted Mesa, who eventually came to admire her moxy, if nothing else. The logistics involved with setting up and advertising the microcredit firm was such that it took longer than Carter anticipated to have it up and running, but by the end of 2027, it was fully operational and helping to revitalize Painted Mesa’s barren commercial district.

*

_January 3, 2027_

_I finally learned that I will be giving birth to a Viscount LaFrenz, rather than a Viscountess. I must confess to being somewhat disappointed by this news, since I thought that having a girl would be easier since I have some insights into being female. However, upon giving the matter some thought, I realized that my experiences as a woman – or as a human being, for that matter – are hardly illustrative of the average female. Maybe it's for the best that I enter this child rearing venture with no preconceived notions. Except for the Nils Bohr thing. That's going to be a given._

Carter sat down at the Rivases’ card table with Betty and Veronica to discuss baby names over coffee and herbal tea.

“Do you have any ideas about names?” Betty asked.

“For a girl, I was going to use Eleanor Héloïse, because I admire both Eleanor of Aquitaine and Héloïse, the famous medieval scholar and social rebel,” Carter said. “But since I'm having a boy, that name won't work. I was thinking that Pierre Astrolabe might be a good idea.”

Based on the reactions of her companions, Carter deduced that they did not consider Pierre Astrolabe to be the best name choice.

“An astrolabe is a medieval astronomical instrument,” Carter explained. “I guess it would be the medieval equivalent of naming your child 'Computer' or '3A.'”

“Where did you get Pierre Astrolabe from?” Veronica said.

“It's the name Héloïse gave the son she had with Peter Abelard,” Carter said. “It would be perfect, especially given how the cruel circumstances that forced Mr. Carter and myself to part are mirrored in the story of Abelard and Héloïse. Well, except for the part where Abelard was castrated and put in a monastery and the other part where Héloïse was shut up in a convent…”

Betty tried to be diplomatic in her criticism and said, “A medieval name might not be the best choice for a baby in the twenty-first century.”

“Yeah,” Veronica said. “No one wants to be saddled with a middle name like Astrolabe in 2027.”

“Do you have any family names you could use?” Betty said. “That can be a good place to start.”

“I suppose the baby could be Thomas Perceval VII, but I think that six Thomas Percivals is more than enough. I'm looking for something that doesn't have any links to the baggage of my past. The problem is that when I look at my family tree, all of the decent male names have been taken by some dead relative.”

“Well, you still have some months to decide, so I'm sure you'll think of something,” Betty assurred her.

“But make sure you don't screw it up,” Veronica said. “Giving your kid a stupid name is like misspelling your name on the SAT; if you can't get that right, you might as well just give up, 'cause you've already failed.”

“You never took the SAT, Veronica,” Betty said.

“Whether I took the SAT or not doesn't matter,” Veronica said. “What I'm trying to say is that a dumb name can ruin your life. There's research about this. I once knew a girl in prison who was also pregnant and she went and named her poor little girl Dee'Luxx, with two es, an apostrophe and two x's. With a name like that, you might as well just abandon the baby at a strip club, 'cause the only thing a Dee'Luxx is destined for is the pole.”

“I hope you didn't tell that to that woman in person,” Betty said.

“You bet I did,” Veronica said. “Better she hear it from me than from someone with actual power and authority.”

As Betty and Veronica argued about the ethics of questionable baby names, Carter thought about what would constitute a proper name for the future Viscount LaFrenz. Her first impulse was to name the baby after Paradim, whom she still regarded as the most important person in her life, even though they were estranged at the moment. Upon further thought, Carter rejected Lewis Leon LaFrenz for the same reason she did Thomas Perceval LaFrenz VII, reasoning that it would be better to choose a name that didn’t contain any historical baggage, whether of the recent or distant past. This also meant rejecting the names of “our boys,” which had the unintended consequence of eliminating the most common British male names from consideration. Thinking back to Leon, Carter liked the idea of a name that evoked the strength and bravery of a lion, despite her vivid recollection of Ms. Schelling telling her that male lions mostly lounged around while the lionesses did all the hunting. Regardless of the biological reality of lion social life, Carter decided to go with the lion theme, and chose Leopold, a German cognate of Leon, name that sounded royal and powerful. Remembering what Paradim had told her about alliterative names so many years ago, Carter worried that Leopold LaFrenz was a poor choice. But given that Paradim’s own name was partially alliterative, Carter wondered if he was simply intent on rechristening her Lady Frenzy and selected the first rationale that came into his head.

*

After deciding on a name for the future Viscount LaFrenz, Carter put in a call to a certain Giovanni “Johnny” Peccator, a private eye whose services she had often requested during her “other life” as Lady Frenzy. Carter often wondered whether Peccator was the detective’s real name, since Peccator meant sinner in Latin, and the name “Johnny Sinner” sounded like a comic book character or a blues musician from the Great Depression. However, Carter was no stranger herself to using fake names, and the matter seemed too trite a thing to ask about. Peccator was a master at digging up dirt about people, places, and institutions, a useful thing when the Corp had a need to slander a real or imagined enemy. However, he had worked directly for Frenzy, not the Corp, meaning that neither Paradim nor Hiss were unaware of his existence.

“Long time, no see, Lady Frenzy,” Peccator said cheerfully. “Well, maybe not literally. Where’ve you been?”

“Where haven’t I been?” Carter said evasively.

“I take it this isn’t a social call?” Peccator said, understanding immediately that he wasn’t going to get any information about her present activities or location.

“No, but my calls never are,” Carter said. “I have a job for you. I need you to investigate the circumstances surrounding the 2010 police shooting of a woman named Annalise Blackhawk in La Cruces, New Mexico. I have reason to believe that there was a police cover-up of the incident.” 

“That’s not usually the kind of thing you have me do,” Peccator remarked.

“A current associate of mine is the daughter of the deceased, and it would mean a lot to her to have her mother’s name cleared,” Carter said

“You getting soft on me, Frenzy?” Peccator joked.

“This isn’t a matter of ‘being soft,’ it’s about rectifying a gross systemic injustice,” Carter insisted.

“Whatever you say,” Peccator said before ending the call.

After hanging up, Carter wondered if being in Painted Mesa really was making her soft. Before her arrival in Painted Mesa, the only person whom she had considered to be a friend was Paradim. In fact, Paradim had been more than a friend, but a father-figure, role model, and personal savior wrapped up in one person. His vision for life had become hers, and she had worked hard to promote both Paradim and the Corp as extensions of her own being. There had been no room in this vision for philanthropy, social responsibility, or concern for others as individuals. However, in Painted Mesa, she had managed to make friends with people with different opinions and different views on what constituted a good life. Rather than lose herself in her new friends, as had been the case with Paradim, Carter remained her own separate person, while they retained their own distinct notions of self. Carter had a fleeting thought that maybe her relationship with Paradim hadn’t been a particularly healthy one, but she quickly put the heretical notion out of her mind.  

*

_January 17, 2027_

_I finally got the evidence from Peccator that will exonerate Rosemary’s mother. The police and politicians in La Cruces are about to get what’s coming to them…_

Two weeks after giving Peccator his assignment, Carter received a small package at the PO Box she had instructed the detective to use to send her his findings. Carter opened the box wearing a pair of latex gloves and found a flash drive containing a number of incriminating documents, including evidence of a doctored police report and autopsy report, emails from internal affairs about the incident, and suspicious crime scene photos. Most damning of all was the missing footage from the convenience store surveillance cameras that not only showed that Annalise Blackhawk did not shoplift a case of beer, but that she wasn’t armed when she was executed by the police.

Carter knew that Peccator was a master hacker and burglar, which meant there was a 99.9 percent possibility that she was in possession of stolen property. This didn’t concern Carter, since she reasoned that the pursuit of justice was more important than the question of who was the rightful owner of the materials in the box. Besides, the police were supposedly public servants, and as a member of the public, she and everyone else in Painted Mesa had a right to know if the police were violating the rights of the people they were supposed to serve.

Still wearing her gloves to prevent her DNA from being shed onto the materials, Carter put the evidence into a new box, and addressed it to the local televiewer news station. As she expected, the reporters were eager for a chance to engage in old fashioned muckraking, and the case of Annalise Blackhawk suddenly became a hot news item.

“Breaking news at 6, Nicole Rogers, reporting” the female news anchor said, as Rosemary, Carter, Veronica, and the Rivases watched on the televiewer at Betty and David’s house. “This station has received shocking evidence that the La Cruces PD was engaged in the unlawful shooting and subsequent cover-up of a young Navajo woman, Annalise Blackhawk, in 2010. We have footage that shows police officers shooting Ms. Blackhawk, who was unarmed and not in possession of a weapon or stolen property as the police claimed back in 2010. Obviously, this footage is too graphic to show on air, so we’ll just show the frames leading up to the shooting. Our public affairs reporter, Jose Ferrera tried to reach the La Cruces PD for a statement, but their spokesman said the department has ‘no comment’ on this situation. We will keep you posted on this breaking event, which will certainly be of interest to civil rights and civil liberties groups.”

“I can’t believe it,” Rosemary said, turning off the televiewer. “I always knew mom was innocent, but I didn’t realize there was an entire cover-up. I wonder how this new evidence was found if the La Cruces PD was so intent on keeping everything a secret.”

“It was probably a whistleblower within the department or maybe a rookie cop whose conscience bothered him or her,” Carter suggested, wanting to deflect speculation away from herself and the less than ethical methods she used to obtain the evidence. “The source doesn’t matter, though. This case is going to be picked up by the national media, so you need to be prepared to be interviewed by the televiewer reporters. It will be good practice for when it comes time for you to do your press junkets for your book. I need to go contact Mr. Porter so he can mobilize his supposed radical buddies for the inevitable protests.”

Mr. Porter was already one step ahead of Carter, and contacted all of his activist friends to tell them they needed to go into action. Less than thirty minutes after the story about Rosemary’s mother aired on the televiewer, a veritable rainbow coalition of over a hundred demonstrators amassed in front of the La Cruces Police Department headquarters to protest the execution of Annalise Blackhawk. A contingent from the reservation promised to join the protest the next day, including Rosemary and her children, and the national offices of NAACP and the ACLU both issued statements of support. After three weeks of constant pressure from the media and the protestors, and an incident in which three police bots were burnt, a lawyer from the LCPD contacted Carter, as Rosemary, who was now going by her maiden name, had identified her as the Blackhawk family legal representative.

“What is it going to take to get the Blackhawks off our backs?” the officer demanded.

“Your department not only killed an innocent woman and slandered her in the media, but you orphaned her daughter and threw her to the wolves in the foster care system,” Carter replied, relishing the orgasm of conquest that she missed from her days at the Corp. “I’d say you haven’t caught nearly as much hell as you deserve.”

“Is it about money? Is that what it’s going to take? You know we aren’t like Chicago or New York; the LCPD doesn’t have the kind of funds to pay off police brutality cases like the big city departments.”

“Here’s an interesting thought: if you don’t want to pay off police brutality cases, try not to commit police brutality. But you knew that, didn’t you? Let me remind you that your department not only killed Annalise Blackhawk, you also falsified her autopsy report. I’d say this scandal goes deep in the La Cruces government. However, you also know that simply providing a settlement isn’t an acknowledgement of guilt on the side of the department. While an apology would be nice, I know Ms. Blackhawk isn’t going to get one, because I know how police departments and governments work. The pain and suffering that Ms. Blackhawk has endured as a result of your malfeasance is deserving of a substantial paid settlement.”

“What are you thinking of?”

“Something along the lines of $20 million.”

“That’s crazy. La Cruces doesn’t have that kind of money.”

“Neither does Chicago or New York, but they keep paying victims off using long-term bonds. I have a feeling that this incident is only the tip of the iceberg with the rot in the LCPD, and if the protests keep going, who knows what kinds of secrets will be uncovered…”

“Okay, fine. Ms. Blackhawk will get her $20 million. Just go away, and take your protest posse with you.”

“No apology? What a shame. It would be so much cheaper. But we accept the $20 million anyway. I’ll send a representative of my own, Ms. Ramos, to meet with you to iron out the specifics. Since I’m not in charge of the protests, I have no way of stopping them. I guess they’ll just have to peter out on their own. Good day, sir.”

Carter hung up the phone, and basked in her victory. However, she felt disappointed with the outcome of the conversation, even though she had managed to score Rosemary enough money to have her and her children set for life. Carter was accustomed to total victory over her opponents, and she regarded the inability for the LCPD to offer an apology to be only a partial win. Just because she was in a vindictive mood, Carter contacted Peccator, told him to keep digging into the internal affairs of the LCPD and the La Cruces city government and to send his findings to all of the major civil right and civil liberties groups.

*

“I can’t believe the LCPD has been targeting Indian, Hispanic, and black residents for decades with racially biased fines and arrests,” Rosemary said, as she watched the televiewer in the Rivases’ living room.

“I can,” Veronica said, thinking about her own experiences with local law enforcement.

“At least the Department of Justice will be investigating all this,” Betty said.

“Stuff like this happens all the time, all of the country, and nothing ever happens,” Veronica grumbled. “But at least Rosemary got some money for her pain and suffering.”

“With the settlement, not only can I buy my house outright, I can get a bigger model with rooms for all the kids,” Rosemary beamed. “It’s like mom wanted me to have it. I just wish the police could have apologized…”

“Well, you know how the police are; they get the benefit of the doubt even in situations where they’re clearly in the wrong,” Carter said. “In any case, I think we’ve won the public relations battle, which is what counts.”

“Since you provided legal help, I suppose I should give you a cut…”

“No, I don’t need it,” Carter said. “You’ll need to pay taxes on it, and you should invest and save what’s left for the future. I can give you guidance on that.”

“I feel bad since you’re giving us all this help without getting any kind of compensation,” Rosemary said.

“I’m fine,” Carter assured her. “I have more money than I know what to do with. Getting a cut of your settlement wouldn’t affect my bottom line in any substantial way.”

Rosemary looked like she wanted to ask what the source of Carter’s money was, but didn’t, and she continued to watch the televiewer news. Meanwhile, Carter mentally congratulated herself on having the kind of virtue that got justice for her friends by any means necessary.      


	12. Isabella Salazar Is On The Case

_February 22, 2027_

_Today, I had the pleasure of being re-introduced to an acquaintance from my ‘other life,’ Isabella Salazar, AKA Carlotta Savoy…_

Isabella Salazar, formerly Carlotta Savoy, arrived in Painted Mesa, New Mexico with little fanfare. Although her run-in with the Corp had necessitated changing her identity and going underground, she was still an independent journalist who specialized in shining a light on corruption and malfeasance in high places, especially along the US-Mexico border. The borderlands were still a dangerous, liminal area, but were still safer for Salazar than remaining around Mega City. She was fluent in Castilian Spanish, Latin American Spanish, and English, which made it easy for her to travel to across the border undetected. It was during one of her investigations of the borderlands that Salazar learned about a mysterious and very wealthy Argentine named Diana Carter who was supposedly helping to kickstart the area's moribund economy. There was nothing in the mainstream Anglophone media about Ms. Carter, but Salazar did find a number of articles in the independent Hispanic, African American, and Native American online media about how Carter had championed their particular interests against the forces of “the man.” Intrigued, Salazar decided to visit the town to investigate the mysterious Carter.

To Salazar's surprise, finding Carter was an easy task. Speaking in Spanish, she was quickly able to determine from the townspeople that Carter had an office in the former Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavanderia, and that she could probably get a meeting if she made an appointment with her personal assistant.

Calling the number she had been given, Salazar tapped her fingers anxiously as she waited for someone to pick up. She always used burner phones in case the Corp ever decided to track her phone calls, but even using a disposable phone made her anxious.

“ _Hello, this is Veronica Rivas_ , _personal assistant to Ms. Carter_ ,” a voice on the other end of the line said in Spanish. “ _What can I do for you_?”

“ _I'm Isabella Salazar, and I'd like to schedule an interview with Ms. Carter. I'm a reporter who's doing a story on the economic renaissance in Painted Mesa and the adjacent Indian reservation. Does Ms. Carter have any time later today for a meeting?_ ”

“ _Yes. Come by at 2PM to a building with a sign that says Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavanderia. It's under construction, but don't pay any attention to that. I'll let you in._ ”

“ _Thank you. I'll see you then._ ”

Salazar killed time until her meeting with Ms. Carter interviewing locals about what they knew about the mysterious Argentine. All of her interviewees had a similar assessment of Ms. Carter, namely that she was a bit odd, but she was generating jobs and optimism in Painted Mesa for the first time in decades. Perhaps most importantly, she was “smoking hot,” even though she was supposed to give birth in several months (this sentiment was universally shared among the men Salazar met, and only briefly touched upon by the women). By the time Salazar arrived at the Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavanderia, she was burning with excitement and anticipation. However, what actually happened defied any of her previous expectations.

“Oh hello Ms. Savoy,” Carter said brightly, as if they were friendly acquaintances, with no bad blood between them. “Nice to see you again.”

“You're Lady Frenzy!” Salazar gasped, wondering what she had gotten herself into.

“That's all in the past now,” Carter assured her. “I have a new identity and a new life, just like you, apparently.”

“So you two know each other?” Veronica asked, switching to English.

“Ms. Savoy was a journalist investigating the Corp. I can see she's still upset about Dr. Hiss trying to turn her into a Huma-Bot.”

“You tried to kill me with a bomb on an airplane,” Salazar said angrily.

“If you had gotten into the escape hatch with the other reporters, you wouldn't have been in any danger,” Carter replied. “But I assume you're not here to rehash old history. What brings you to my little slice of the world?”

“I came here to investigate Diana Carter and her role in the redevelopment of Painted Mesa, but now I think there's another story that needs to be investigated.”

“Which is what?”

“That Lady Frenzy is hiding out in New Mexico.”

“That's not a story. As I've explained to Veronica here, there's nothing wrong with a woman deciding she wants to abandon her old life and start a new one, unless she abandons her children with crazy hoboes or something like that. If there's something wrong with that, then you should do a story on yourself and not me, especially since you've been on the DL much longer than I have. This isn't some kind of Watergate situation where you're sitting on some huge story with unimaginable political repercussions. It's just a simple tale of a woman trying to fulfill her American Dream and that of numerous others, and the only way that could be done is by changing her identity. Most importantly, if my cover was to get blown, all the improvements that have occurred in Painted Mesa and the Navajo reservation would disappear, or at the very least be in jeopardy. Now I know you've done a lot of traveling in Latin America and around the border, so you know how dire conditions are, especially in the colonias. Things are started to be reversed here, and that can't happen if I'm on the run.”

“Since when did you develop a social conscience?” Salazar said, suspicious of Carter's motives.

“I don't think I do, to be honest,” Carter replied.

“Then why are you doing all this?” Salazar wanted to know.

“Think of what I'm doing more in terms of feudalism than a social conscience.”

“Feudalism?” Veronica interjected, who until that point had simply been a witness to the unexpected meeting of the two former enemies. Her knowledge about European history was sparse, but she knew enough to know that feudalism was not considered a good thing.

“Yes,” Carter said. “Well, not feudalism in the classical sense, but in spirit. The people around here have been very good to me, better than anyone I've met at any other point in my life. They give me respect and homage, and in turn, they get respect and material benefits from me in return.”

“So you think of us as your serfs?”

“Of course not,” Carter said. “Be sensible. Serfdom means being in a state of bondage vis a vis the seigniorial lord. You're legal citizens of the United States, whereas I'm what is so vulgarly referred to as an illegal alien. From that perspective, you have far more rights than I do, at least as far as the US government is concerned. I said it was feudalism in spirit, not literally. And what difference does it make in the end what anyone calls what I'm doing as long as people's lives are being improved? Take our friend Rosemary Blackhawk, for instance, an aspiring novelist on the Navajo reservation. Her novels are quite good, but an editor was never going to take them seriously because she doesn't have an MFA, hasn't had any short stories published in literary journals, and hasn't been to any writers' workshops. Yes, there are some writers who lack these qualifications who do get published, but they don't come from the kind of poverty Rosemary once had. Like any other industry, there hoops you need to jump through to get published, and there was no way Rosemary could have ever gotten halfway through even one of those hoops. With my connections, I was able to bypass the slush pile altogether and get her a contract. Is this fair? Of course not, but it was never fair to begin with. This is why the game is essentially rigged for Rosemary and all the people in Painted Mesa, because they don't have the same connections that the well-to-do white people in Phoenix or Albuquerque have. Or at least they didn't until I arrived. They – the well-to do, that is – believe in the lie of a meritocracy, because it convinces them that the Rosemarys of the world are struggling because they deserve it, even when most of their own wealth is the result of being born into it and knowing other affluent people who will open doors for them. Having a 'social conscience' is all well and good, but it doesn't get things done. You may think I'm amoral or immoral or whatever term you chose to use, Ms. Salazar – that's your new name, isn't it? – but I like to think of myself as being honest. I understand the reality of how the world works, and I'm using that knowledge to better the lives of the people who have shown a type of benevolence that I've never experienced elsewhere. So you can either be an asset to my work, or you can take your wannabe Woodward and Bernstein act out of my office and out of this town.”

Salazar didn't know how to respond to Carter's speech, but Veronica said, “You really know how to tell it like it is?”

“I try,” Carter replied wryly.

“But why are you here?” Salazar said.

“Because no one would ever think to look here, and because I need the services of a local artist.”

“Are you really Argentinian?”

“No, but a lot of people like to think that I am, so who am I to deprive them of their happiness? Besides, I find that it's useful to keep people guessing about my origins; it creates an air of mystery that's extremely marketable.”

“Where _are_ you from?”

“It's a complicated issue, but I have a British passport. Let's leave it at that.”

“Is it true you're pregnant?” Salazar asked, remembering what the townspeople had told her.

“Yes.”

“You don't look it,” Salazar retorted, examining Carter's stomach, which only had a slight bump that could indicate anything from early stage pregnancy to the aftereffects of a lunchtime burrito.

“I may not look it, but I certainly feel it. Exactly how some women can fail to know that they're pregnant is a mystery to me. In fact, I'm approaching month number eight now. So much has happened in those eight months. I should really write a novel about it, but I don't think anyone would believe such a story; I don't even believe it sometimes, and I've lived thought all of it.”

“Who’s the father?”

“Take a guess.”

“Ziv Zulander?”

“How astute of you to notice.”

“Does he know about any of this?”

“No. You're the only person from my previous life that knows I'm here.”

“Ziv doesn't seem like to type who'd abandon a pregnant woman.” Salazar recalled how how much she admired Ziv for his bravery, courage, and idealism in face of the all-powerful Corp, but she had also found him rather immature. She knew that Ziv was interested in being more than just comrades in arms, and even if she had been called to the sword rather than the pen, the idea of being stuck in his secret headquarters with just him, his sister, and a crew of BOYZZ bots didn't appeal to her. Given her own impressions of Ziv, she was surprised that a powerful, worldly woman like Frenzy would take an interest in him, but life was strange like that. Unlike most of Ziv's former supporters, she didn't feel betrayed or even particularly shocked that he had taken up Frenzy's offer of marriage, since it was clear to her that the union had been a way to end the conflict that allowed both sides to save face. Plus, Salazar knew the vast majority of men found Frenzy desirable, and would have made the exact same choice that Ziv made, had they found themselves in his shoes.

“He's not, but other forces conspired to drive me out into the desert.” At this point, Carter related the entire story of how she came to be in Painted Mesa: how she foiled the civil suit issued by the hypocritical socialite Genevieve Todd-Iverson, how the US government tried to deport her, how she had managed to broker peace between the Corp and the Zulanders with her marriage agreement, her month of wedded bliss at Whigby Hall with Ziv, how her happiness and sanity had been spoiled by Blitzy's “rescue,” her ill-fated suicide attempt, and the pregnancy of which Paradim disapproved.

“And that is, in a word, my own true story,” Carter, announced to Salazar, who had long since grown bored with her tale.

“That was really long-winded,” Carlotta Savoy said.

“I thought you wanted to hear the whole thing,” Carter said, annoyed that Savoy/Salazar found her enthralling tale so underwhelming.

“Do you have to put obscure literary references in everything?”

“It's not my fault you're uncultured,” Carter replied. “The references aren't obscure if you have a solid foundation in the classics.”

“I'm not uncultured!” Savoy/Salazar insisted, now deeply offended.

“Maybe not, but you definitely need to work on your cultural literacy,” Carter said, taking a sip of water from her mug, which had _World's Greatest Mom_ in Latin printed on the outside. “Various translations of _The Aeneid_ are readily available, both online and in the print, depending on your preferences. I'm not surprised that Americans wouldn't recognize _The Aeneid_ , but I would have thought that the schools in Spain would have more respect for the classics. Seriously, what are they teaching kids today?”

“Don't worry about it,” said Veronica, who had also heard the story, but found it quite interesting. “Carter thinks everyone is uncultured.”

“They usually are, but that's neither here nor there. In any case, I think you could be useful around here, Ms. Salazar.”

“Oh?” Salazar replied, not liking the sound of “being useful” to the once and former Lady Frenzy.

“Yes. Unlike my former colleague, Dr. Hiss, I don't see a need for naked aggression unless it's as a last resort. Someone like you can be an asset to my work, just like Veronica.”

“What's the story with Veronica?” Salazar said, realizing for the first time that Veronica knew that Carter had once been Lady Frenzy.

“Much like yourself, Veronica has a very probing mind. When I first got here, her sister and brother-in-law graciously allowed me to move into their home, but Veronica was suspicious of me, and my purposely mysterious ways. Like you, she wanted to out me to the media, but I convinced her that there wouldn't be any value to that, and now she works as my right-hand woman. I could use a media type-person, a 'Minister of Propaganda,' so to speak, and I think you'd fit the bill.”

“What if I refuse?”

“Well, you won't end up a humabot or with your legs broken, if that's what you mean, but I think if you agreed, your life would be much easier; you could end your peripatetic existence and land a salary that's much better than the scant love offerings you're currently making as an online journalist.”

“Are you doing anything illegal?”

“No, you'll be very happy to know everything is completely ethical. At least, I my goal is to be law-abiding at least seventy-five percent of the time. The last thing I need is to attract the attention of the government, who are probably still trying to have me deported. As I told Ziv once, I don't just break the law for the hell of it.”

“Why hasn't anyone noticed you're here?”

“For starters, I don't think anyone around here pays attention to the news, especially not financial news. It also helps that I've changed my appearance.”

“How? You look exactly the same as you did when you were Lady Frenzy.”

“No I don't. I changed my makeup profile, and I dress casual now.”

“You just look like Lady Frenzy wearing different clothes. And the clothes aren't even that different, because anyone who knows the slightest bit about fashion can tell those jeans cost a fortune.”

“I dyed my hair.”

“It's still blonde.”

“But it's a different _shade_ of blonde,” Carter insisted. She took out what appeared to be a color wheel that depicted every conceivable color and shade that human hair might be, and said, “My natural hair color is what is referred to by professional stylists at the House of Lebec as 'light wheat blonde.' Currently, it's 'honey blonde.' I'm not sure why food metaphors are being used; I'll have to ask about that.”

“Your hair looks the same to me,” Salazar said. “Why couldn't you dye it brown or black?”

“Because dark hair would look completely wrong with my skin color; I'd look like a corpse. If something were to happen to me here, I'd want to die in the same manner that I lived.”

“Overdressed?”

“Yes!”

“You know she's being serious, right?” Veronica said, who was already accustomed to Carter's unique outlook on life.

“Where did you get the surname 'Carter'?” Salazar asked.

“Before I came here, I spent a month decamping, trying to figure out what to do. As I killed time, I watched a lot of old TV shows, including one from the 1970s called _Wonder Woman_. It was an amazing program, with allusions to classical mythology, Nazis, spies, science fiction…”

“ _Wonder Woman_ was just a tacky 'jiggle show,'” Salazar said contemptuously.

“No, not at all,” Carter insisted. “It's a deep program about female empowerment and women doing things for themselves, and will to power. In fact, I even wrote an academic paper on the role of Nietzsche's thought in _Wonder Woman_ that I'm considering submitting to a peer-reviewed journal under another name. Do you want to read it?”

“No, that's all right,” Salazar said, uninterested in Carter's thoughts on the linkages between pop culture and philosophy. “Let me get this straight. You chose your new identity based on an actress in an old TV show?”

“Yes, but I think that if you saw _Wonder Woman_ you too would want to name yourself after Lynda Carter. Plus, my legal first name is the same as Wonder Woman's human alter ego, so it all works out. Truthfully, I did think about choosing a _nom de guerre_ that was based on classical literature or art, but I thought that would be a bit too obvious. The last name Carter has the advantage of being common enough to allow me to blend into society. Well, to the extent that someone like me could blend in. But enough about me. Are you willing to join our merry band of bitches?”

“I...suppose.”

“Excellent. Let me assure you that you won't regret it.”

Salazar smiled weakly and thought to herself that she already did.

*

After agreeing to become Carter's Minister of Propaganda, Salazar accompanied her new boss the Rivas house for dinner, while Veronica went to pick up Brian from an after-school activity. Although Carter, Veronica, and Rosemary now had their own houses, they still spent much of their free time with the Rivases at their new house. The new Rivas home was a Peristylum Home that was open and airy, with rooms for each of the twins and Archie, and tall windows that let in lots of natural light. The Rivases also had a maid bot and a chef bot to perform their household chores, although Carter had insisted on “inspecting” them before they could be activated. Since the Rivases now had bots to do the cooking and cleaning, Betty could devote more of her time to the twins, rather than drudge work.

“I hope you don’t mind that I brought a guest,” Carter said.

“Any friend of yours is a friend of ours,” Betty said, who was coloring with Marisol and Mateo while the chef bot cooked dinner.

“I wouldn’t exactly call us ‘friends’…” Salazar said.

“Not yet, anyway,” Carter said, who was confident she could forge a success working relationship with Salazar in spite of the unfortunate humabot incident. “I met Isabella Salazar in my previous life.”

“Oh really?” Betty said. By this time, Carter had trusted the Rivases enough to tell them the general outline of her life –  dissolute drug-addicted parents, emotionally detached governess, deportation, a kindly but dead grandfather, a mysterious “friend” who introduced her to the business world, and “Mr. Carter” – although she left out any identifying details that might suggest that she had once been Lady Frenzy. Carter had also reached a level of comfort with the Rivases where they knew about the extreme emotions that she had regarding the various events people from her past, something she had never shared with Ziv. Consequently, the Rivases knew far more about Carter’s inner life than the man she still regarded as her husband ever had.

“Yes, I’m a journalist, and I’ve covered some of Ms. Carter’s previous business dealings,” Salazar said.

“How nice,” Betty said. “You aren’t from around here, are you?”

“No, I’m originally from Toledo, Spain,” Salazar said, which was true.

“Ah, so your native language is _castellano_ ,” Betty said admiringly, using the Latin American term for Castilian Spanish. “I’m sure you find our Mexican Spanish in these parts barbaric.”

“Not at all,” Salazar said. “Latin American Spanish is just different. I studied Spanish literature in university, and I enjoy all permutations of the Spanish language.”

“Oh, I have exciting news,” Betty said, turning to Carter and Veronica. “I received a letter in the mail from Woodburn Academy saying that the twins have been accepted with a full scholarship!”

“That’s great,” Carter said, trying to feign surprise.

“I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised to have gotten the letter so early,” Betty said. “I would have thought that the admissions committee wouldn’t start mailing them until spring.”

“The twins were probably so superlative that the committee made up their minds early,” Carter said, knowing full well that it was her superlative donation that assured the Rivas children their spots at Woodburn Academy.

David arrived at the house soon, as did Rosemary and her children, and the meal began. Like Carter had before her, Salazar provided a truthful, if vague account of what she had been doing before arriving in Painted Mesa, and completely left out her skirmishes with the Corp. The Rivases and the Blackhawks were unaware of these omissions, and were simply fascinated by Carter’s Continental acquaintance, with her varied experiences, proper upbringing, and fine Castilian Spanish.

After dinner, Salazar went to Carter’s house, where she would be staying on the living room couch until she could secure her own lodgings. Carter’s house was next door to the Rivases’ house, and was the same model type, though the interior had a definite Anglophone aesthetic to it that was absent from their house. The two women went into the living room, where Salazar saw some writing on the wall opposite to her.

“What’s that? Salazar asked.

“Betty told me that painting a quote on the wall that encapsulates your values is the current rage within the world of home décor,” Carter explained.

“I’m not sure if this was the best quote you could have chosen,” Salazar said, looking at the quote on the wall written in elegant Copperplate script, which read:

_I would not kill my enemies, but I will make them get down on their knees. I will, I can, I must!  – Maria Callas._

“True, I’m not a fan of Callas as an artist, but this quote is a perfect encapsulation of how I’ve decided to live my life,” Carter said, as she pulled out a spare pillow and blanket from the linen closet. “It was either this or Nietzsche.”

Salazar stared at the quote a bit longer, before sighing and sitting down on the couch.

“I’m sure you’ve had a hard day, so feel free to crash here,” Carter said. “I’m going to my study to keep working.”

“Okay,” Salazar said. It was only nine o’clock, but Salazar was so exhausted by the day’s events that she decided to turn in early. She took off her shoes, and snuggled under the covers, eager for the bliss of a deep, relaxing sleep. Her last memory before dozing off involved looking at the Maria Callas quote and wondering what she had gotten herself into.


	13. Men Do Crazy Things For Me

_February 25, 2027_

_Who would have ever thought that being kidnapped by a drug cartel would turn out to be one of the most fortuitous events of my life…._

Although Carter had assured Salazar that she wasn't doing anything illegal, an incident several days after the latter's arrival in Painted Mesa would cast doubts on the former's claims. On the day in question, Carter, Salazar, and Veronica were about to arrive at the still under construction Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavenderia, when a group of green bots painted in the garish colors of the Los Etas drug cartel burst in and held them up at laser point.

“Put your hands behind your head and don't move,” the ostensible leader of the green bot death squad said. “If you do as you are told, you will not be hurt.”

“I thought you said you didn't have anything to do with Los Etas,” Salazar said, as she raised her hands in the air and placed them behind her head.

“I don't,” Carter said, doing the same. “This is a truly unexpected turn of events.”

“No talking,” the green bot leader said, as the bots handcuffed the women's hands, shackled their feet, blindfolded their eyes, and led them into a nondescript heli-bot of the sort usually associated with moving cargo. After being roughly shoved into the hold, the heli-bot whisked the trio away for parts unknown.

“I should have known you were nothing but trouble, Diana Carter,” Salazar said contemptuously.

“And you know what the worst part of it is, is that the televiewer will probably just say, _Lady Frenzy and others killed by Los Etas,_ ” Veronica said. “Assuming they're able to even identify us.”

“We are not going to die,” Carter assured her companions.

“Do you have a plan?” Salazar asked.

“Not yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something.”

Veronica and Salazar sat in silence for the rest of the lengthy trip, convinced that they were about to meet their collective end. The former feared that Brian would think she'd abandoned him like her own mother had, while the latter cursed the day she'd ever stepped foot into Painted Mesa. However, Carter remained convinced that she could negotiate with her captors and get out of the situation unscathed. Drug kingpins were businessmen, after all, and there had to be something she could offer the head of Los Etas that would satisfy him. However, the idea of paying protection money to anyone was hateful to her, even if it would mean saving her life, because doing so suggested she was operating from a position of weakness. For a minute, she wondered if she could call Paradim and have a team of PPBs and Greenbots rescue her. But that was a problematic idea for a variety of reasons. First, she was trying to be independent of the Corp, something that would be ruined if she ran to Paradim for help every time she got kidnapped by a drug cartel. Second, she had no idea where she was, which made any kind of rescue attempt difficult. Third, she doubted that she'd be allowed to make a final phone call. The only thing that would enable her to get out of this situation alive would be her wits, something that had served her quite well in the past. Part of her feared that Paradim had been right, that she couldn't manage without him, and without his protection she was just going to end up another headless body in the desert.

Carter was shaken out of her thoughts when she sensed that the heli-bot had landed. She could feel the green bots forcing her out of the heli-bot and into the open air. After being confined for so long, it felt good to be outside, even if was even hotter and more humid than Painted Mesa. However, she was quickly shoved into a building of some sort and forced to sit down. The blindfolds was removed, but the handcuffs and leg shackles remained. Carter saw that she and her companions were in a sort of vestibule/foyer area that vaguely reminded her of the lavish penthouse apartment she had once had at the Corp Condo Complex, right down to the enormous fish tank and stuffed moose head on the wall.

Before Carter could examine the interior décor more closely, the door to the room opened, and a short Hispanic man with a long ponytail, a robotic arm, and a grey, double-breasted suit from the House of Lebec suit entered. _So this is the boss of Los Etas_ , Diana thought. _At least he has good taste in clothes._ She steeled herself for what she assumed would be the inevitable hail of laser fire, when the man said, “ _I'm so glad to finally see you again Diana_ ,” in Spanish. He spoke with a rural Honduran accent, but he sounded like someone who was consciously trying to affect a more sophisticated manner of speaking.

“ _What_?” Diana said, discomforted that the head of Los Etas knew her by name.

“ _I'm sorry for the rough way I had to bring you here, but given my reputation, you can understand that I wouldn't want to jeopardize your project by an unfortunate association with me_ ,” the man explained, as he began to untie Diana and her companions _._ “ _This way, if anyone sees us together, you can just say you were kidnapped._ ”

“ _Why I am not surprised that you're on a first name basis with the head of Los Etas_?” Isabella said sarcastically.

“ _I've never seen this man in my life_!” Diana insisted.

“ _You don't recognize me_?” the man said, frowning a bit in disappointment. “ _Well, it has been quite a while._ _This should jog your memory._ ”

The man pulled out a piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Carter. She looked at the paper, then paled and visibly gasped, dropping the paper. Veronica picked up the worn and crumpled piece of paper and saw that it read:

_I would not wish any companion in the world but you. -- William Shakespeare, The Tempest._

– _Diana LaFrenz_

Veronica and Isabella were baffled by the meaning and significance of this paper, but Carter realized that she had finally been reunited with her childhood friend, Rafael Vargas. She felt something akin to joy that they had finally been reunited, even if he had chosen a profession that she didn't approve of. But then again, most people didn't seem to approve of her previous career, so Carter decided that her misgivings didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Once all three women were free, Rafael invited them into his living room, which offered a stunning panoramic view of mountains and canyons. Also festooned liberally throughout the room were photographs of Carter as Lady Frenzy, including some paintings of her in a faux Andy Warhol style.

“ _Where are we_?” Carter asked, trying to get her bearings straight.

“ _The Sonora desert_ , _near_ _the New Mexico-Mexico border,_ ” Rafael said. “ _I have a house here, one that's out of sight of the authorities. It's a good place to hide, and keep an eye on cross-border traffic._ ”

“ _How do you know Carter?_ ” Veronica said.

“ _We both found ourselves in the same detention center as children back in 2010_ ,” Rafael answered. “ _Even back then, she was a rare jewel, an angel, and I dreamed of meeting her again._ ”

“ _What made you decide to contact me_?”

“ _I've known you were Lady Frenzy ever since you started using that pseudonym_ ,” Rafael replied. “ _Diana LaFrenz, Lady Frenzy, it's not too hard to figure out._ ”

“ _I used to just say Diana LaFrenz was my cousin, and that was enough_ ,” Carter said _._ “ _The fact that very few people actually knew Diana LaFrenz helped a lot._ ”

“ _I followed your career as Lady Frenzy closely, and I was distressed when I heard about the Yvonne Iverson affair._ ”

“ _I did absolutely nothing wrong_ ,” Carter insisted, annoyed that everyone kept bringing up that unfortunate incident.

 _“Of course_ _you didn't_ ,” Rafael said, who shared Carter's situational approach to ethical issues. “ _But I knew that unless I acted swiftly that you'd end up in prison, so I ordered a hit on the Montrose family. Since there was no connection between Los Etas and the Corp, I knew it would absolve you of any wrongdoing._ ”

“ _See, I told you I wasn't responsible for the deaths of the Montrose family_ ,” Carter proclaimed triumphantly, while Salazar and Veronica looked horrified about what they had just heard. “ _Unfortunately, I don't have any way to pay you back. I have lots of money, but you don't seem to be hurting yourself in that department._ ”

“ _Just to be able to talk to you again is payment enough_ ,” Rafael declared. “ _So, who are your two associates_?”

“ _This is my friend and personal assistant, Veronica Ramos_ ,” Carter said. “ _That other one is Isabella Salazar, who while not exactly a friend, has graciously decided to become my Minister of Propaganda_.”

“ _I'm delighted to make the acquaintance of two such fine ladies_ ,” Rafael replied, with a slight bow. “ _Any friend of Diana Carter's is a friend of mine_.”

Salazar was appalled at being in the presence of the head of Los Etas, but Veronica reasoned that it was better to be a friend rather than an enemy of a man like Rafael Vargas, and put out her hand so he could shake it. Rafael ordered a chef bot to whip up some hors d'oeuvres for his guests, and chatted with Carter while they waited for the food to be ready.

It was quite obvious to Salazar and Veronica that Rafael was in love with Carter or at the very least harbored an unhealthy obsession with her, but Carter was accustomed to men fawning all over her, and thought little of it. From Carter's perspective, she was finally with someone who understood her past and didn't judge her for the decisions she had had to make, even if these choices seemed “wrong” by society's measure. Carter learned that in addition to running Los Etas, Rafael was married and had two children, both of whom were away at boarding schools in Europe under assumed names for their own safety. Rafael proudly showed the women a picture of his wife, a pneumatic Brazilian who looked like the cheap, Halloween version of Lady Frenzy.

Never one to mince words, Veronica said, “ _Has she had plastic surgery_? _Those tits can't be real._ ”

“ _Francisca has had a bit of work done_ ,” Rafael admitted, which seemed like an extreme understatement. “ _But you know how Brazilians are; they love their plastic surgery_. _To them, getting new breasts or a new nose is no different than going to have a bunion removed._ ”

“ _Is your old lady supposed to look like Carter or was that just coincidental_?” Veronica asked as the maid bots laid out an impressive spread of wine and hors d'oeuvres on the coffee table in front of the small group.

“ _Believe it or not, that's the trend these days in South America. Everyone wants to look like Lady Frenzy. Of course, some women can pull the look off better than others..._ ”

“ _Where is Francisca_?” Carter asked, wondering what it would be like to meet her bargain basement doppelgänger.

“ _She's at my main residence in Chiapas. I'll be flying back there later today. But I'll make sure to tell her that you want to meet her._ ”

“ _I can't believe you have no problems with hanging out with a drug kingpin_ ,” Salazar interjected, aghast that Carter showed no concern whatsoever with buddying up to a man that was responsible for untold numbers of deaths.

“ _I don't know if you've noticed dear, but you're hanging out with a drug kingpin as well_ ,” Carter said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“ _Yeah, don't get all judgy_ ,” Veronica chimed in, as she stuffed her face with decorative canapés. “ _It's not like Carter knew ahead of time that he was going to put a hit out on the Montrose family or anything like that. It's not like there's much else to aspire to in Honduras beyond joining somebody's gang_.”

“W _hat would you do in my situation, Ms. Salazar?_ ” Rafael said accusingly. “ _Honduras is still the one of the most violent countries in the world. My village was being attacked by the paramilitaries and the drug gangs to the point where both were pretty much interchangeable. I couldn't even go to school because of the violence, and I was constantly being pressed by Los Etas and the other gangs to join. It was either join somebody's gang or die._ ”

“ _There's always another choice_ ,” Salazar insisted.

“ _Being an Eta wasn't my first choice_ ,” Rafael said. “ _I tried sneaking into the United States twice so I wouldn't have to join a gang, and I was send back both times. During one of those trips, I lost my arm. About ten minutes after Diana was deported, it was my turn to go before the judge. My English wasn't very good, and still isn't, but I tried to explain about the violence I'd be forced to endure if I had to go back to Honduras. It was no good, and I was sent back permanently. I tried to change my fate, and it didn't work. I simply don't see how my life could have turned out any differently than it did._ ”

Carter listened to Rafael's and realized that she had the same views regarding the trajectory of her own life. Although she had been born with considerably more money than Rafael and theoretically more options, she didn't see how things could have been different for her; Paradim had seemingly been present in her life from the beginning, guiding her towards her inevitable destiny as Lady Frenzy. She had managed to change her fate by walking away from the Corp, but Carter doubted that it would have been possible to bypass the Lady Frenzy stage altogether.

“ _If it makes you feel any better, Ms. Salazar_ ,” Rafael continued. “ _I'm going to help Diana out to reduce the number of children who might be interested in adopting the Los Etas lifestyle._ ”

“ _How so?_ ” Salazar said, extremely wary of any “help” Rafael might be able to provide.

“ _As the largest drug cartel in the Americas, I can not only tell my men to stay out of Painted Mesa, but prevent other drug dealers from other cartels from operating there as well. Consider it a favor from me_.”

“ _Sound good to me_ ,” Carter said, and she sealed the agreement with a handshake.

The visit with Rafael lasted another two hours, with he and Carter talking about literature, politics, and classical music, Veronica availing herself of the free food, and Salazar sitting aloof with a disapproving look. While Salazar was still offended by the idea of fraternizing with a drug lord, she decided that further criticism was hopeless. All she could do was hope that her position as Carter's “Minister of Propaganda wasn't going to include extended visits with Rafael.

“ _It's almost four o'clock_ ,” Carter noted, looking at the cuckoo clock on the wall. “ _We should probably get back to Painted Mesa_.”

“ _Yeah, I need to get back to pick up Brian from school_ ,” Veronica agreed, putting down her wine glass. “ _I've got to call him and tell him I'll be late_.”

“ _One of my private, unmarked heli-bots will put you out on the outskirts of Painted Mesa so you don't arouse suspicion_ ,” Rafael said. “ _You can call your son from the phone on the helibot. If he questions the number, just say you lost yours and you had to borrow someone else's._ ”

Turning to Carter, Rafael continued, “ _In a couple of days, you'll receive a gift that you should find useful in your new stage of life_.”

“ _Understood_ ,” Carter said, not at all suspicious or concerned about what a gift from the head of Los Etas might entail. “ _It was a pleasure seeing you again, and I really mean that._ ”

“ _Until later, adieu_ ,” Rafael said, kissing her hand. Getting up, he beckoned the women towards the hangar where his fleet of heli-bots was stored.

*

“Well, that was an interesting experience,” Carter remarked, as she and the other women trekked back into the Painted Mesa city limits.

“Interesting is not the adjective I would use,” Salazar grumbled.

“Quit complaining,” Veronica said. “Because of that visit, we can finally walk around without worrying about drug dealers.”

“Only because a deal was made with the worst drug kingpin in the world,” Salazar said.

“Drug cartels are just a part of life in this area,” Veronica pointed out. “You might not appreciate not having to see dealers on every corner, but I know I will.”

“Yes, the fact that public safety will improve in Painted Mesa made the visit worthwhile, although I was very glad to see Rafael again as well,” Carter agreed.

“Of course you enjoyed it,” Salazar said. “You were able to spend the afternoon with a man so besotted with you that he killed several dozen people in your name.”

“That wasn't my fault,” Carter insisted. “Men do crazy things for me. That's the way it's always been. I can't be held responsible for what goes through their minds. By that logic, you might as well put Jodie Foster in prison because she inspired some nutcase to shoot Ronald Reagan.”

“It's not their minds you're inspiring,” Salazar said.

“I didn't think you would be this catty,” Carter observed. “Actually, I kind of like it. Keep it up. I think this experience has drawn us closer together. A 'muscular bonding' type of experience.”

“I don't think that's what 'muscular bonding' means,” Salazar said.

“It doesn't matter, because this is only going to be the first of many such experiences,” Carter declared.

Salazar sighed, and remained silent for the rest of the journey, wondering for the hundredth time what she had gotten herself into. When the three women finally reached the Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavenderia, Betty met them, worried about their unexplained absences.

“I haven't heard from you all day, and Brian called and said you were going to be late,” Betty said. “What happened?”

“We had an unexpected meeting about public safety,” Carter said. “Because of our successful negotiations, I predict that there will be a significant drop in crime, especially those pertaining to drug violence.”

“Well that's nice,” Betty said, pleased with their recent activities. “It will be so nice not to have to see drug dealers all over the place. Maybe we can finally go to the public park with the children without having to see all those dreadful gang bangers hanging around.”

“I look forward to seeing that happen,” Carter said. Her confidence and enthusiasm was such that Betty didn't inquire further into what her “public safety” negotiations had entailed, and neither did David when he heard of it. However, the day after Carter's “public safety meeting,” Betty, David, and the other residents of Painted Mesa, as well as the adjoining Navajo Reservation,  noticed that all the drug dealers disappeared as if they had been spirited away by magic. There were some rumors about a number of low-level drug dealers being executed in the desert, but such sordid matters were of little concern to Betty, David, Rosemary, and the other respectable citizens of Painted Mesa, who appreciated being able to move freely in their town without the fear of running afoul of criminal elements.

A week after her meeting with Rafael, Carter received a large package in the mail with no return address that turned out to be a bullet and laser proof car seat of the sort used by royals and presidents. When asked where the car seat came from, Carter simply said that an old friend had given it to her.


	14. Viscount LaFrenz Makes His Appearance

Three months after she received Rafael’s gift, Carter went into labor. She was relieved that the end of her pregnancy was finally within sight, because even if she didn’t look to be with child, the physiological effects of her state had become oppressive, and Carter looked forward to the day when Viscount LaFrenz could live outside her body.

Recalling the oppressive hospital visitation guidelines that had kept her isolated from her reluctant guardian Ms. Schelling during her monkey attack ordeal, Carter convinced the hospital staff that Betty, whom she had pressed into doula duty, was her sister and her presence was required for moral support. When one nurse expressed skepticism that the tall Nordic-looking woman was related to the short, dark-skinned, Latina, Carter berated her for prying into the details of her family dynamics. Chastened, the nurse apologized, while Carter geared herself up for the task before her.

“How long does this process last?” Carter asked, after she had been in labor for four hours. “I have things I need to do, deals that need to be sealed.”

“It could be anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days,” Betty said.

“How annoying,” Carter said, working to keep her stoic facade through the contraction, and thinking about her own mother, who had been too stupid to know she was pregnant and blessed with a short, albeit traumatic, birthing experience. “I guess the term ‘labor’ is well-chosen.”

“I don’t think it should be that bad for you,” Betty said, trying to be optimistic as always. “I was in labor for thirty-two hours with twins and I had to have a C-section. At least you have your favorite music to keep you occupied. I had to spend my hospital stay listening to generic Muzak.”

Carter had requested that the hospital play the Solti version of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle during her labor. The staff thought it odd (one nurse grumbled at the prospect of having to listen to what she called “dreadful operatic crap” for hours on end), but honored Carter’s wishes. _Das Rheingold_ had already come and gone, and the second of the Ring operas, _Die Walkure_ played in the background and Betty and Carter talked. As with all of her transactions in New Mexico, Carter paid for her medical expenses out of pocket with nondescript checks that didn’t provide any clues as to who she really was, and the staff may have been more apt to humor her strange requests because they knew she would pay immediately, with no insurance company to come between the hospital and its money.

Right after Betty finished her description of her less than optimal birthing experience, “Winterstürme” played over the speakers, the song that Carter always associated with Ziv. Hearing the song stirred up a variety of strong and confusing emotions for Carter, and she wished that Ziv could be present for the birth of their child.

Betty noticed her pensive look, and asked, “Are you thinking about Mr. Carter?”  

“A bit,” Carter confessed, not wanting to admit to any weakness on her part. “But I think in this situation, it’s better to have someone who actually has empirical knowledge of pregnancy and childbirth. Mr. Carter was always such a delicate soul that I doubt he’d be able to handle the various bodily fluids that invariably accompany the childbirth process. Even worse, if Mr. Carter was here, so would that unbearable sister of his. Maybe this is all for the best.”

 _Die Walkure_ and _Siegfried_ came and went without the appearance of Viscount LaFrenz. It was only after thirteen hours of labor, during the first third of _Götterdammerung_ , that the proverbial finish line came into view. Those final moments were a chaotic scene, because Carter was trying to push, argue with a doctor about opera, and issue various instructions to Salazar on a burner phone all at the same time.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” Carter said between pushes. “Maria Callas was not the best opera singer of all time. She just wasn’t. Kirsten Flagstad wasn’t called ‘The Voice of the Century’ for nothing.”

“You’re just a Ring nut,” the doctor said dismissively. “You Wagnerians can never see the beauty of bel canto.”

“This has nothing to do with bel canto,” Carter insisted. “Her high notes were appalling.”  

“You should have heard her during her fat stage,” the doctor claimed.

“I don’t think Callas ever had a fat stage,” Carter said contemptuously. “As the kids say, ‘pics or it didn’t happen.’ I’ve never seen a photograph of Callas where she legitimately looked fat.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” Salazar said on the other end of the phone.

“No, you’re not fat,” Carter said. “I’m saying Maria Callas was never really fat.”

“Who?” Salazar said, feeling completely confused.

 “What do mean, ‘who’?” Carter said, exasperated by Salazar’s cultural ignorance. “Don’t you know anything about opera? Never mind. Now, what I need from you is to work on some press releases regarding the upcoming groundbreaking ceremony for the Thomas P. LaFrenz V Navajo Health Center, not just for the tribal media but for the general New Mexico and Arizona media outlets as well...”

“Carter, please,” Betty said. “You need to push.”

“I am pushing,” Carter assured her. “It’s called multitasking. I have a high tolerance for pain, so I can push and do all these other things at the same time. The epidural also helps a lot, of course…”

“But what about that time when Callas sang _Die Walkure_ and _I puritani_ in the same week?” the opera-loving doctor interrupted.

“That’s quite a feat, but there are no recordings of it, so I can’t evaluate either way,” Carter said. “However, if Callas was putting her voice through that kind of stress in the span of one week by singing two heavy roles in wildly different styles at a young age, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she blew out her voice by the 60s.”

“Blow out what?” Salazar said.

“I’m talking to the doctor,” Carter said, momentarily returning to the phone. “As I was saying, I need you to prepare those press releases…”

“Maybe I should get back to you at a better time,” Salazar said.

“Now’s as good a time as any,” Carter said, who believed that there was never a bad time to conduct a business deal. “So as I was saying, I want you to contact that social media firm in El Paso…”

Carter’s business call was suddenly interrupted by a series of plaintive wails, and her body was flooded with an immense feeling of mental and physical catharsis that unlike anything she had ever experienced. She craned her neck and saw the doctors, both the opera-hating one and the opera fan, worked to clean the newborn up and cut the umbilical cord. It was disgusting and beautiful all at the same time. Once the baby was well and truly separated, he was handed over to Carter for some early skin-to-skin contact.

“Are you still there?” Salazar asked when she noticed that the other end had gone dead. “Is everything alright?”

Carter was aware that Salazar was still on the line, but decided to let Betty finish the call; for once, Carter had nothing to say.

_June 5, 2027_

_After a labor process that lasted for longer than I would have cared for (but not as long as it could have been, according to Betty), Viscount Leopold Siegfried Felix LaFrenz has finally arrived, seven pounds even. I was going to go with Tristan for his second middle name to make it all Wagnerian, but Tristan means 'sad,' whereas Felix means 'happy,' which is more appropriate to how I feel. Leo looks red, but doesn’t have that scrunched up, wrinkly look that many newborns seem to have. Leo seems perfectly formed and proportioned in every way, appropriate to a newborn’s body ratio, of course. No webbed feet and no excess or missing body parts either. Perfect in every way, although I was hoping he’d be born with more hair. Looking at Leo has caused me to wonder what I looked like as a baby, since I don’t have any photographs of myself before the age of four. I guess that will remain a mystery. One thing that is clear is that Leo is going to have a very different upbringing that any previous LaFrenz. He won’t be raised by governesses or nannies, and be left to fend for himself like a newly hatched sea turtle. Whatever else might happen, Leo is going to know that he has a mother and that she loves him._

*

Salazar didn't know what she disliked most about being Diana Carter's “Minister of Propaganda”: that she had sold out her ideals for money and comfort, that she was on the payroll of a woman she considered to be morally bankrupt, or that even after just giving birth, Carter’s stomach was so flat you could eat dinner off it.

“It’s called being professional,” Carter said, as she lounged in her hospital bed, looking as fresh and lovely as ever, and held a peacefully sleeping Leo in her arms. She had listed Salazar as yet another sister on her intake form, so the two of them could conference face-to-face during her sojourn in the hospital. “When you’re professional, it means that you tolerate being around people that you ordinarily wouldn’t because there’s a greater goal that needs to be accomplished. Also consider the fact that most corporations, nonprofits, and other institutions are morally suspect in some way. The only reason why I seem particularly ethically challenged to you is because you know more about the inner workings of the Corp than what happens at some other corporation like Global Motors or Hero Cola.”

“There’s probably some truth to that,” Salazar admitted.

“Of course, it’s true,” Carter said.

“What did you put on the birth certificate?” Salazar asked.

“The truth,” Carter replied.

“The actual truth?” Salazar pressed, knowing that Carter had her own definition of truth.

“Yes, the actual truth,” Carter said. “I know what it’s like to not exist from a legal perspective, and I have no intention of inflicting that on Leo. I’m already looking to have him declared a dual citizen of the US and the UK.”

“You actually put down Ziv Zulander as the father and your legal name as the mother?”

“Of course. The orderly bots and the secretary bots don’t ask nosy questions. Babies are born every day; there’s no reason why Leo’s birth should be anything out of the ordinary, at least as far as the bots are concerned.”

“I’m surprised the humans here haven’t recognized you.”

“I admit I was worried about it, but other than some stares, I haven’t had any problems. No one expects Lady Frenzy to be here, much less in the maternity ward. Since I’m 100% committed to maintaining my new identity, it’s easy to convince other people of this same fact by sheer force of will, even if their eyes are telling them something else.”

“What’s the baby’s full name?” Salazar asked.

“Viscount Leopold Siegfried Felix LaFrenz,” Carter said. “It sounds so noble, don’t you think? Leopold was the given name of dozens of European monarchs. Granted, they were a mixed bag, as hereditary monarchs tend to be, but I’m sure my Leopold will be much better than they were. The very fact that his parents aren’t first cousins is already a step in the right direction.”

The two continued to talk about matters relating to business and pleasure for about thirty more minutes, while Salazar thought to herself whether she had lost her moral scruples. One of the things she really hated about her current employment circumstances was that there were many times when Salazar genuinely liked Carter, even though she felt that she shouldn’t. Lady Frenzy had always had a reputation as a charmer, although her allure hadn’t really worked on Carlotta Savoy. Diana Carter was still a charmer, but she did it in a different way than she had as Lady Frenzy. Carter had appealed to Salazar’s sense of justice, and it worked. Now Salazar was one of Carter’s “vassals” and was entitled to all of the benefits and privileges that entailed, including receiving an ample salary and being privy to this most intimate of occasions. Salazar was unsure if this development was good for the long-term state of her conscience, but at least it represented a more stable financial situation.

*

Two days after Leo was born, Salazar drove mother and baby home to Painted Mesa. When Carter entered the house with Leo sleeping soundly in his car seat, she was greeted by the Rivases, the Ramoses, the Blackhawks, and the Porters, who had all come for a “welcome home” party. The children crowded around Carter, eager to meet baby Leo.

“Leo’s so cute,” Mercedes effused. “He looks like a doll. Can I hold him?”

“Yeah, I wanna hold him too,” Porsche said.

“Maybe in a week or so,” Carter said, feeling skeptical about her vulnerable newborn being manhandled by germy children. These sentiments intensified when she saw Ford picking his nose, and casually wiping the contents on his shorts.

“He’s really tiny,” Mateo said. “Can he get out of that thing and play?”

“No, newborn babies can’t walk,” Betty said. “Leo probably won’t be walking for at least a year or so.”

“That’s boring,” Mateo complained. “Can he do anything but lie there?”

“He can cry and wriggle around,” Marisol said.

“That’s still boring,” Mateo said. “Why can’t babies be more fun?”

“You were that tiny when you were a baby,” Marisol retorted.

“Was not,” Mateo said.

“Leo’s a nice baby,” Ford said, reaching out to poke the baby, while the twins bickered among themselves.

“Don’t poke the baby, Ford,” Mercedes said, slapping her brother’s hand away before he could wake Leo up. “You’re gonna wake him up and then he’ll be crying and stuff.”

Brian didn’t say anything, but simply looked at Leo with fascination.

“Why doesn’t the baby have any hair?” Alexus asked with childlike tactlessness.

“Yes, why doesn’t the baby have any hair?” Carter said. The baby pictures she had seen of the Rivas and Blackhawk children indicated that they had all been born with impressive manes of dark black hair, whereas poor Leo was completely bald, other than a barely visible down of blond fuzz on the back of his head.

“The baby does have hair; it’s just very light, so you can’t see it,” Betty said, even though she privately thought that the reason that Leo appeared bald was because he _was_ bald.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Carter,” Veronica said reassuringly. “Before you know it, he’ll have more hair than you’ll know what to do with.”

“Yeah, babies grow up so fast,” Rosemary agreed. “It seems like only yesterday Ford was a little baby and now he’s about to start preschool. It almost makes me wish I had another baby myself...”

“Really?” Sheriff Blackhawk said, frowning a bit at Rosemary.

“Relax, grandpa,” Rosemary said. “I know that I’ve got all I can handle with these four. I can just live vicariously through Leo. Right now, my upcoming book is going to be my baby for the foreseeable future.”

“Good choice,” Sheriff Blackhawk said approvingly.

“Denise and I got you these books that Leo can use,” Mr. Porter said, pushed a large crate filled with children’s books about black history.

“Now this is something I can use,” Carter said, looking at the books with interest.

“Those books seem a bit advanced for Leo,” David said.

“Who’s talking about Leo?”  Carter said. “There’s a lot of information here that I need to learn. Even if Leo can’t use them now, he can when he goes to elementary school. Besides, a good book is timeless.”

“Well, you finally did it, Ms. Carter,” Denise Porter said in her usual half-serious, half-sarcastic tone. “Of course, it doesn’t take much for a woman to shoot out a baby…”

The other guests were shocked at Denise’s crassness, but Carter said, “No, I completely agree with you on that point, Mrs. Porter.”

“The really hard part is about to start,” Denise said. “Do you think you can handle it?”

“If I didn’t think I could handle it, I wouldn’t have gone through with it,” Carter said. She thought of Hiss and his frequent tantrums when he didn’t get his way. If she could manage those kinds of adult histrionics, dealing with a child should be a piece of cake.

“True,” Denise said. “I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see what kind of mother you are, Ms. Carter.”

The other guests gave Carter their presents. They all had enough sense not to give her any baby clothes, because they knew any article of clothing they chose would fail Carter’s fashion test. Instead, Carter received more prosaic items, like diapers, wipes, and bedding, all of which were much appreciated. After staying for about two hours, everyone returned to their respective homes, and Carter was left alone with Leo for the first time.

“Well, I guess it’s just you and me now,” Carter said to Leo, who was starting to cry. “You and me against the world. And probably the Corp.”


	15. The Rogue’s Progress

The next two and a half years were a blur for Carter, not because of any intoxication or mental derangement, but because she was busy with Leo and her various entrepreneurial efforts. With the birth of Leo, Betty tagged along with Carter, Veronica, and Salazar on their business errands to serve as a nanny on call. Salazar had been skeptical that her boss could be both a hard-nosed business woman and a hands-on mother, but sure enough, Carter’s will to power was so strong that she could project authority even while wearing a baby sling. Carter’s attitude could be summed up as, _I’m the one who’s in charge, and if I want to burp a baby during a business meeting, that’s my prerogative,_ and everyone seemed to accept it _._ The fact that Leo was an easy, cheerful baby helped, and he would watch his mother’s business dealings with a look of uncomprehending wonder as he sat in her lap or rested in her arms.

Like Carter herself, Leo wore custom-made outfits from the House of Lebec, and she took his measurements twice a week so the couturiers in Paris could stay abreast on his current size. Veronica said it was ridiculous for Carter to spend so much money on baby clothes that Leo would outgrow in a week or so, but custom-made clothes had been the norm for Carter since she was a child, and she saw no reason to change this state of affairs. Carter enjoyed dressing Leo up in different outfits and taking pictures of him, determined that he would have a visual record of his babyhood, something that she herself lacked. Despite Veronica’s cynicism about the wisdom of expensive baby clothes, she had to admit that Leo looked adorable in his outfits and he clearly enjoyed the attention he received from his mother.

Carter and Leo visited the Porter compound several times a week to check on the progress of the war monument. During these visits, she and Mr. Porter would begin by discussing the project in question before branching out into other endeavors. More often than not, they would watch World War II documentaries like a couple of crusty old men. Denise would observe her husband and the young white woman transfixed by the documentaries in rapt silence, and shake her head in disbelief. Denise still thought Carter was nuts, but she had accepted the other woman’s eccentricities as a given, and had rightly concluded that she was too self-absorbed to be any kind of threat to the sanctity of her home.  

“Do you think you should be exposing a baby to a war documentary?” Denise asked one day, while Mr. Porter, Carter, and Leo watched a program on World War II’s Eastern Front.

“Well, he’s got to learn about it sometime,” Carter said, as she stared at the televiewer and Leo babbled and played with her hair. “Better for him to learn about the war in the home than on the street. Besides, this one’s my favorite.”

“ _Blood Upon the Snows_?”

“Yes. My grandfather and I used to watch _Blood Upon the Snows_ over and over again during his last years. We’d just start the first part in the morning and keep watching until we finished it at night.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen, fifteen. Something like that.”

“Weren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“Oh, I was done with school by then. Granted, I meant to get a PhD, but I had to put that on hold to look after my grandfather. There should be plenty of time to get that doctorate later.”

Denise looked like she wanted to say something in response, but thought better of it, and left to run errands. Oftentimes, Carter and Leo would stay for dinner, along with the Porters’ sons and grandchildren. Twins seemed to run in the Porter family; eldest sons Khalil and Bilal were identical twins, while the younger sons, Amir and Hamza were fraternal twins. Furthermore, the elder twins themselves had twins, as Khalil was the father of seven-year olds Malcolm and Martin, and Bilal of ten-year old Coretta and Rosa. The children looked forward to Carter’s dinner visits, because she was apt to reward them with hundred dollar bills if they demonstrated their academic prowess to her.

“Denise has been tutoring the grands in Latin, since even a private school like Woodburn Academy is failing to teach the classics,” Mr. Porter said during a dinner that occurred when Leo was around eleven months old.

“It’s so tragic that an entire generation of children are growing up ignorant of _mensa, mensam, mensae_ ,” Carter sighed, as she tried to feed an uncooperative Leo some mashed peas.

“Isn’t it though? But our kids are doing quite nicely with their studies. It helps that Denise has a bunch of degrees in the classics. Coretta, Rosa, do the bit from Caesar’s _Gallic Wars._ ”

The two girls stood up and gave a lively recitation of the first two chapters of Julius Caesar’s iconic _Gallic Wars_ from memory, with Coretta delivering the initial part and Rosa the second one. Not willing to be outdone by their cousins, Malcolm and Martin did a joint reading of some of _Aesop’s Fables_ in Latin. Carter was deeply impressed by the display, and gave each child a hundred-dollar bill, which Denise promptly confiscated, grumbling that no elementary school student needed to have that kind of money in their pockets.

“There’s nothing wrong with the occasional splurge,” Carter said. Her immense wealth was such that she didn’t understand why Denise would think that a hundred dollars was too much for a child to possess, especially since the Porters themselves were rich by Painted Mesa standards.

“There is such a thing as learning the value of a dollar, Ms. Carter,” Denise said. “I don’t need the grands growing up thinking that they’ll be rewarded with dollar bills every time they do what they should be doing anyway. I’ll be putting these bills in each of their savings accounts so they’ll have something when they’re old enough to need money.”

The children protested the seizure of their bills, because money that couldn’t be spent right away was the same as having no money at all in their minds. However, Carter could appreciate the importance of teaching children the virtue of thrift, even if her own notion of the value of a dollar was skewed. She thought of her own parents, who had grown up with no boundaries, financial or otherwise, and was determined that Leo would be raised with a different set of values. The Porters represented the kind of family that Carter wished she could have had: smart, ambitious, tight-knit, and a strong collective work ethic. Since she and Leo were the last of the LaFrenzes, Carter decided that she could start rebuilding her family line from the ground up.

But it wasn’t just war documentaries and family dinners for Carter and Mr. Porter. Occasionally, the two would make trips to gun shows where Mr. Porter would buy guns for Carter in his name. Aware of the need to protect herself should the Corp discover her whereabouts, Carter needed to obtain some firearms. The only problem was that Carter was unable to buy guns herself, because of her “irregular immigration status,” which necessitated an American citizen to act as a proxy. Mr. Porter was a firm believer that one should obtain life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by any means necessary, and he was sympathetic to Carter’s claims that she needed guns to protect herself against the unnamed forces that had forced her flight to Painted Mesa, which made him a perfect stand-in with whom to purchase weaponry. However, Carter’s intentions for her guns went far beyond target practice.

“You know this is illegal, right?” Mr. Porter said. A disassembled AK-47 was laid out on one of the tables in his workshop. Carter was paying Mr. Porter to turn the weapon, which was built to shoot bullets, into a laser gun, and he was understandable nervous about what he was about to do; converting bullet guns into laser guns was a federal offense, especially if the gun in question was an automatic or semiautomatic military-style model. But Carter reasoned that if the Corp sent its considerable forces after her, a laser-powered AK-47 might be the difference between life and death for herself and Leo.

“Of course, I know this is illegal,” Carter replied. “But I don’t plan to tell anyone and neither are you. It’s not like I’m going to use it to rob a bank or assassinate a politician. I don’t even plan to use this thing unless I have no choice. After you finish turning it into a laser, I’m just going to store it in a gun safe. No one will ever have to know that this gun has been modified.”

Mr. Porter nodded, although he didn’t seem enthusiastic about the project.

_April 19, 2028_

_I feel more at ease now that I have some serious firepower in my possession, even though possession of these guns is technically illegal. I can’t be bothered with legal niceties, given the type of opponent that I’m up against. Mr. Porter had bought me some handguns before, which may be useful against ordinary street hoods (who I’m not afraid of anyway), but not an onslaught of security bots, green bots, MDBs, and god knows what else. My meager arsenal is probably insufficient against the Corp’s forces, but Zulander managed to best our numerically superior troops with his skeleton force of thinking bots, so maybe the situation is not as dire as I feared. Hopefully, I’ll never need to use these guns, and they’ll just remain interesting conversation pieces behind the glass of the gun safe…_

*

Veronica’s correctly prognosticated that Leo would grow up fast, changing from a floppy infant to a crawling baby to an energetic toddler before Carter knew it. His hair grew slower than Carter would have liked, but once it came in, she saw that it was a beautiful golden hue, not unlike the color of a lion’s fur. By the time Leo was two, Carter began to have some idea about the kind of person he was becoming. Leo had Ziv’s sweet and mellow personality, but none of his shyness; he liked meeting people, and people in turn liked meeting him.

“Say thank you for the cookie,” Carter said to Leo, when Denise offered the boy some snacks during one of their visits to the Porter homestead.

“Tank you, _Tia_ Denise,” Leo said. He had a large vocabulary was articulate for his age, although he had difficulties with some sounds. As befitting a child being raised in a multilingual environment, he called all adult females, _Tia_.

“You’re welcome,” Denise replied, putting the cookie jar back behind a stack of _Jet_ magazines from the 1970s.

“You look pwetty today, Tia Denise,” Leo said.

“Well, aren’t you quite the sweet talker?” Denise said, allowing herself a rare smile.

“Your house smews nice too,” Leo added.

“That’s the scent of antiseptic floor cleaner, but I’ll take any compliment I can,” Denise said. “So what are you doing after you leave here?”

“I’m gonna make music,” Leo announced, once he finished chewing his bite of cookie.

“Today is his kindermusik class,” Carter explained.

“And yesterday he went to his _Française pour enfants_ class?” Denise asked.

“Yes,” Carter said. “Saturdays, he has the German class.”

“This kid isn’t even two and he already has a fuller schedule than most adults,” Denise said, shaking her head.

“It’s not formal school,” Carter retorted. “He just learning through play. I’m already speaking to Leo in multiple languages at home and showing him some piano basics, so these classes are simply reinforcing what I’m doing as a parent. I know you must have sent your sons to all sorts of classes when they were young.”

“Yes, but not so early,” Denise said. “There’s something not right about a toddler with a full schedule.”

“He’ll be fine,” Carter assured her. “You like going to your classes, don’t you Leo?”

“Yes,” Leo said, wiping his face with his sleeve. “Can I have anodder cookie, Tia Denise?”

“I don’t know…”

“Pwease?” Leo pleaded, flashing his big eyes that looked either deep blue or deep green, depending on your perspective.

As crotchety as Denise often was, she found that she couldn’t resist Leo’s doe-eyed look, and dutifully gave Leo another cookie against her better judgement.

Like Carter, Leo could be a charmer, but he balanced it out with a concern for others that was already apparent before he turned two. This concern extended to animals, and Leo would regularly pick bugs off the sidewalks and put them in the grass so they wouldn’t get hurt.

“What are you doing, Leo?” Carter asked her son, as she watched him lean over the bottom of the slide in Painted Mesa’s now drug dealer-free public playground.

“Taking caterpiwer off the swide so he won’t get smashed,” Leo explained, as he let the furry creature crawl on the palm of his hand and transferred it to the trunk of a nearby tree.

Since Carter had never been sentimental towards animals, she didn’t understand why Leo would care if a caterpillar was injured. She chalked up this behavior to his general fascination with fauna of all sorts, especially birds, dinosaurs, and large mammals. After reading Leo _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ for what felt like the hundredth time, Carter concluded that he was more likely to become Charles Darwin than Niels Bohr.

*

Leo’s second birthday also coincided with the grand opening of the Thomas P. LaFrenz V Navajo Health and Rehabilitation Services Center, the jewel in the crown of Carter’s network of development projects. The architecture of the center resembled a glass and steel version of a traditional Navajo _hogan,_ and the crowd could not fail to be impressed by the cultural and religious significance of the new building. Carter, Leo, and Veronica appeared at the ribbon cutting ceremony, along with the Blackhawk family, who stood in the front of the audience to cheer the collective efforts of their people and their friend.

 “Dear people,” Chief Crippen said. “After almost three years of work, sweat, and tears, the Thomas P. LaFrenz V Navajo Health and Rehabilitation Services Center is finally open. I don’t need to remind you all of the of the many challenges that face our community, especially in terms of public health. However, this state of the art health center will be an important step in treating our physical and mental pain, which will enable us to thrive, rather than merely survive. Ms. Diana Carter, a noted friend of our community whose help was invaluable in making this center a reality, will now say a few words.”

Carter stepped forward to the podium with Leo in tow, and said, “Thank you, Chief Crippen. There is not much I can add to your fine speech. Because brevity is indeed wit, I will strive to make my own message short and memorable. It is often said that ‘health is wealth,’ because it is difficult to enjoy any other varieties of wealth without a sound mind and/or body. Health should be enjoyed by all people, and not simply the moneyed classes. I hope that the Thomas P. LaFrenz V Navajo Health and Rehabilitation Services Center will help the Painted Mesa Navajo people achieve the physical and mental health that will lead to personal and collective flourishing. Thank you very much.”

Thunderous applause followed Carter’s short speech, and Leo enthusiastically waved to the crowd in response. The multitudes began to disperse to prepare for the religious ceremonies that would further christen the health center, and Chief Crippen and the other elders invited Carter and Leo to participate.

“While I appreciate the invitation, I’m afraid that I must decline,” Carter said. “Whites have been misappropriating Indian religious and cultural rituals for so long that it would not feel right for us to foist ourselves upon your community. You should use these festivities for you and your children and not worry about Leo or myself. Besides, today is Leo’s birthday, and I need to return home to prepare for the party.”

The elders were impressed by Carter’s cultural sensitivity, but Veronica suspected that Carter’s declination of the invitation had more to do with her friend’s general lack of interest in religion rather than a conscious decision not to impose upon the Navajo community’s hospitality. Regardless of her intentions, Carter said all the right things, and everyone left the ribbon cutting ceremony contented and hopeful for the future.

*

Several hours later, Leo’s party commenced, with the Rivases, the Ramoses, the Blackhawks, the Porters, and Salazar in attendance. Leo was dressed in a tailor-made House of Lebec sailor suit that resembled the kind of clothes that Thomas P. LaFrenz V would have worn a hundred years ago as a little boy, which was exactly why Carter chose it. She took a picture of Leo in his sailor suit, printed it out, and put it into a diptych-like frame that contained an antique photo of her grandfather at age six wearing the same sort of outfit.

 _My two favorite LaFrenzes_ , Carter thought admiringly, as she put the diptych on the mantle. _Who would have ever thought that I’d accomplish so much after my nadir when I was locked up at the nut hut?_

“Neat picture,” David observed when she saw the new picture on the mantle.

“It represents the past and the future,” Carter said. “For many years, I was the last of my kind, but with Leo, this family will go on into the future.”

David thought that was an odd thing to say, but didn’t press for further clarification.

Once all the guests arrived, everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to Leo twice, first in English, and then in Spanish. However, just as Leo was about to blow the candles out on his cake, Mateo pushed him out of the way and blew them out himself. Leo started crying, while David removed Mateo from the party, chiding him for “being mean to the baby.” Betty hastily relit the candles and told Leo he could try again. That was sufficient for Leo, and he became all smiles again after extinguishing his own candles to thunderous applause.

In typical toddler fashion, Leo was more interested in the boxes and wrapping paper than with the gifts themselves. The exception was the custom backpack Carter had the House of Lebec make for Leo, which he immediately put on and refused to take off until he went to bed later that day. The backpack was decorated in bright primary colored, and had his name embroidered across the front, along with cheery cartoon animals.

“That backpack is so cute,” Betty said, as she watched Leo show off his new gift to the other children.

“I bought it because Leo’s going to be starting preschool in the fall,” Carter said. “Veronica has excellent instincts for what makes a good school, and she helped me find a good program.”

“He’s not going to Woodburn Academy?” Rosemary asked.

“Woodburn Academy doesn’t start until age four,” Carter answered. “Besides, I want something a little less formal at for Leo at this age. There’s a bi-lingual pre-school in La Cruces called Los Amigos de la Tierra that focuses on nature education using the Montessori method, and I think that would be a good fit for him, because of his interest in biology and natural history. Given my own…unusual educational experiences, I want Leo to be properly socialized with his peer group, preferably in multiple languages.”

“He seems to already be socialized in a bunch of languages," Rosemary said. “Leo’s schedule is busier than mine.”

“These classes are a good way to teach Leo things in an age appropriate way,” Carter said. “At this point, Leo’s brain is like clay and can be easily shaped to accept a large amount of information. The more he learns now, the better he’ll be able to learn more complex subjects later.”

Carter neglected to mention that she had never seen Los Amigos de la Tierra, because of her fear that well-heeled whites in the city might recognize her as Lady Frenzy. Instead, she had Veronica go to examine the school as her agent, and report back her findings. She wondered if it was a good idea to send a child to a school she had never visited, but decided that as long as the teachers were kind and competent, it would all work out in the end.

Carter watched Leo interacting with the other children and noted how confident he was; Leo was the youngest child present at the party, but he was more than able to hold his own among his elders.

“I wanna pway!” Leo shouted to Ford, as he tried to join an informal soccer game that the older boy was playing with Marisol, a sulky Mateo, and Martin and Malcolm Porter in Carter’s scrubby yard.

“You can’t play,” Ford said disdainfully. “You’re just a baby and no babies are allowed to play.” Ford had recently completed kindergarten and thought he was very grown up, even though he had been considered “the baby” of his extended family until Leo’s arrival.

“Am not a baby,” Leo said. “I go potty all by myself.” Leo had been working on potty training for about six months now, and was inordinately proud of this accomplishment, demanding to tell everyone about his bathroom activities, much to Carter’s horror.

“In first grade, everyone goes to the bathroom by themselves,” Ford said. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m going to school too,” Leo said. “I got my own book bag and everything.”

 _No one’s going to push Leopold LaFrenz around_ , Carter thought admiringly. _Though I wish he wouldn’t talk about toilet habits in public._

Leo’s persistence was such that the older children relented and allowed him to play. He had no interest in following the rules, however, and would kick the ball into whatever goal he chose. After ten minutes of this unorthodox approach to soccer, Leo became bored of the game, and went to play with the Blackhawk girls, who had brought their new cat to the party.

Several months prior, Mercedes and Porsche had found a one-eyed, half-starved cat hiding under the foundation of their school, and brought the poor creature home to care for him. Under the girls’ diligent care and a vet’s supervision, the cat had flourished, and he was now a fat, healthy, and well-loved member of the Blackhawk family. Porsche had dubbed the cat Barbancito after the great nineteenth century Navajo chief, but unlike him human namesake, the feline Barbancito was a lover, not a fighter; the cat was so docile, he considered squirrels and other rodents to be potential friends, rather than future prey, and couldn’t understand why these small animals fled at the sight of him.

“Can I pway with the kitty?” Leo asked Porsche.

“Yes, but you have to be careful,” Porsche answered. Mercedes, Porsche, Alexus, and Leo played together with Barbancito for a while.

“I got a kitty too,” Leo announced.

“You do not,” Alexus said.

“Do too,” Leo said, reaching into his backpack and pulling out the stuffed Steiff tiger that went everywhere he did.

“That’s not a real cat,” Alexus said.

“Kitty is too real,” Leo insisted. “But he only talks to me.” Leo then spun a complicated tale about the various adventures that he and Kitty supposedly had together, which included and a jaunt into outer space.

“Leo has quite the imagination,” Betty observed, as she watched the boy

“This is normal, right?” Carter asked. Imagination was not encouraged at Ms. Schelling’s one room schoolhouse, and she wasn’t sure if Leo’s vivid fantasies were the signs of a budding knack for writing or a pathology.

“Of course,” Betty said. “Young children love to pretend.”

Carter realized how much of normal childhood behavior and was foreign to her, because of her own process of miseducation. Although she worked hard to be a hands-on mother, she was painfully aware of how "unnatural" being maternal felt to her, and Carter worried incessantly about Leo's emotional health. Despite her anxieties, Carter managed to have a good time and provide her guests with an equally enjoyable time. Before each family left, Carter gave each child a backpack filled with books, school supplies, and small toys, gifts that could be appreciated by adults and kids alike. 

When all the guests had departed, and Leo went to bed, Carter penned the following entry in her journal:

_June 4, 2029_

_Today was Leo’s second birthday, as well as the grand opening for the health center on the Indian reservation. My life as Diana Carter has been more successful than I ever could have dreamed; I’m helping people and making a fine profit doing so, not to mention raising a child who will probably be the next Charles Darwin. I only wish that LLP, Hiss, and the Zulanders could see how awesome I’ve become, because I know they would be so jealous that so much greatness and virtue could reside in a single person…_

Carter would get her wish, five months later, when her new life would be permanently derailed by the intervention of outside forces.

*

Leo wasn’t the only thing was that growing quickly in Painted Mesa; thanks to Carter’s investments in the town (not to mention Rafael Vargas’ promise to keep the drug cartels at bay), Painted Mesa had been transformed into a sort of boheminian eco-tourist destination. As “Minister of Propaganda,” Salazar helped spread the word in online artist forums that Painted Mesa was a pleasant, cheap place for the members of would-be creative class to put down roots. The artists came to Painted Mesa and moved into some of the abandoned warehouses in the commercial district, turning the buildings into lofts and art galleries. Locals also opened small businesses with the help of the loans Carter’s microfinance agency was offering. By the end of 2028, Painted Mesa’s once mortibund downtown was filled with eclectic shops, art galleries, restaurants, artisan groceries stores, and other amenities.

In early 2029, a sprawling new business complex sprang up in downtown Painted Mesa around the building that used to be the Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavanderia. The word on street was that a major international corporation, the LF Group, had decided to make Painted Mesa its new headquarters, and new jobs would be forthcoming. In reality, Carter had decided to build a new nerve center for her constellation of businesses in the town where she now resided, rather than constantly putting in long-distance calls on burner phones to her affiliates in Europe. When the new LF Group complex was completed, another influx of new arrivals came to Painted Mesa, this time in the form of middle management types to staff the offices. The LF Group offered students at the local high school and community college valuable internships of the sort that were usually only available to students in private schools and wealthy school districts, and it was soon regarded as a good example of corporate citizenship.

The residents, both old and new, had a vague idea that Diana Carter was responsible for the town’s success, because she ran the LF Group complex and possessed an uncanny ability to “fix things” for them, but no one could explain exactly how she did what she did. For most people, Carter was simply a wealthy and generous eccentric, who freely gave out hundred dollar bills to strangers and was known to ride through town in a blue BMW convertible with the vanity plate “SXE LDY” and a toddler in the backseat. That was all most Painted Mesans knew about Carter, and that was all she wanted them to know.

*

As Carter built her empire in the desert and raised her son, life continued for her associates from her current and previous lives. After he finished remodeling his old business for Carter, David decided to return to enroll in the University of New Mexico-Los Cruces to finish up his undergraduate degree. He received a scholarship from the LF Institute for Human Development (which, unbeknownst to David, was another gift from Carter) to continue his studies, and his end goal was to become a lawyer who could help those with irregular immigration situations. Betty’s pay as Carter’s “lifestyle consultant” was sufficient that David could become a full-time student and the couple’s finances would continue to run a healthy surplus. David’s new schedule also allowed him to be the primary caretaker for the twins, a development which he and Betty appreciated.

Betty’s “lifestyle consultant” position meant that she spent most of her time tagging behind Carter, Veronica, and Salazar on their business trips, while she took care of Leo. Remembering how her own parents went out of their way to avoid her as much as possible, Carter wanted to maximize the amount of time Leo spent with her, so when the boy wasn’t attending one of his many classes, he accompanied his mother on her various entrepreneur activities. Since Leo was generally a well-behaved toddler, there were seldom any problems with his presence, and Carter discovered that a cute child was useful for breaking the ice with potential clients. Working for Carter meant that Betty had a flexible schedule that allowed her to spend more time with her own children, while making far more money than she ever had working at the laundromat.

Veronica was enjoying her new status as a white-collar worker, after years of performing degrading bot work. Not only did Veronica earn much more as Carter’s personal assistant than she ever had working at the diner, but the other parents at Woodburn Academy became much nicer to her, even though her core personality and physical appearance remained unchanged. The main difference was that after several years of being under Carter’s snobbish tutelage, Veronica had not only earned her GED, but could now pepper her speech with quotations from classic literature and the opera and the odd Latin phrase from Cicero or Seneca (despite her busy schedule, Carter was still conducting her Latin classes for the Rivases and the Blackhawks, and the group was now working through Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ ). Now that Veronica’s cultural literacy had improved, the Woodburn parents had to grudgingly admit that she had become their intellectual equal.

Salazar soon had enough money to buy her own house in Painted Mesa. Although she had developed a sort of grudging respect for Carter, Salazar thought that being around her 24/7 was a bit much, given the other woman’s eccentricities and strong personality. Salazar used Leo’s arrival as an excuse to move out, claiming that three would be an unwelcome crowd. In any case, Salazar enjoyed the freedom of not having to worry about where her next paycheck was coming from, and the ability to travel freely without having to look over her shoulder in fear of the Corp’s goons. She was aware that this freedom was the direct result of the questionable actions of Carter and Rafael Vargas, a fact that bothered her, but Salazar felt happier and more relaxed than she had in years.

Of all of Carter’s new friends, Rosemary had made the most progress in her self-actualization process; her debut novel, _The Owl Seeker_ , was a critical and commercial success, mostly due to the fact that Carter’s publishing house had sent a copy of the book to media titan Shiloh Saunders, who had loved it and plugged it endlessly via her popular Shiloh’s Book Club enterprise. With the Shiloh Saunders seal of approval, the housewives of America and beyond bought up all the copies of _The Owl Seeker_ they could find, necessitating that another edition be printed to meet the demand. Like many formerly unpopular people who experience a sudden change of fortune, Rosemary found that public opinion about her on the reservation had rapidly shifted from “fantasy prone loser” to “celebrated local daughter,” and the individuals who had once looked down on her now became much nicer to her.

If life for the denizens of Painted Mesa was progressing in a constant upward pace, Carter’s associates in Mega City and Santa Marta were merely treading water. Paradim remained CEO of the Corp, the largest and wealthiest company in the world. His social standing had risen from its nadir following the Yvonne Iverson fiasco, although it still hadn’t returned to what it had been before the launch of Project Krang. With Frenzy still missing, Paradim had to engage in the kind of public relations that he had once outsourced to his more charismatic vice president. He wasn’t entire successful in his efforts – his social skills had atrophied from lack of use, and the very people he was trying to impress and/or influence found his mannerisms off-putting – but Paradim certainly wasn’t going to let the visually disgusting and anti-social Dr. Hiss become the public face of the Corp. Paradim’s social ineptitude only reminded him how much he needed Frenzy to return, both on a personal and professional level.

Hiss, on the other hand, was perfectly content to have Frenzy remain permanently AWOL. He had always resented being paired with her in public, not because Hiss thought he was ugly (on the contrary, Hiss always considered himself to be the best-looking and smartest person in the room), but because he knew the average person was too ignorant to understand that cyborg bodies were the next step in human evolution, and would negatively compare his own superior robotic form to Frenzy’s weak, conventionally attractive meat figure. The only downside to Frenzy’s absence was that Paradim spent most of the time complaining about how she had left, which meant that even if Hiss didn’t have to be around her, he still had to hear about her all the time. The cyborg scientist’s antipathy towards Frenzy was such that he hardly devoted any time or resources to find her, despite Paradim’s insistence that no expense be spared in the search for her. When Paradim scolded Hiss for security control’s lack of progress in finding Frenzy, Hiss could truthfully say that his team had failed to discover any clues that might indicate where she might be. Like most people, Hiss assumed that Frenzy had taken up residence in London or Paris, he and was perfectly content for her to remain hidden.

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune continued to be annoyed at the artificial restrictions Hiss imposed upon them. Their newest collective interest was cricket, and they would try to play informal games when Hiss wasn't looking, in addition to pursuing their individual hobbies. However, Hiss's constant mockery of their desire for greater personal freedom reminded them of how much they hated their lives. They concluded that they needed a new master, one who could protect them from the prejudice of the outside world and Hiss's irrational anger, but were unsure of where to find such a person.

While the executives at the Corp adjusted to life without their charismatic vice-president, the Zulanders tried to be “normal people” with varying degrees of success. At the same time Leo started preschool at Los Amigos de la Tierra School in La Cruces, Blitzy entered high school at the Walden School in San Vincente. Enough time had passed so the students and teachers weren’t constantly staring and whispering about her behind her back, but Blitzy didn’t have anyone that she could consider a close or even a casual friend. Her youthful bravado was gone, replaced instead by crippling anxiety about what other people thought of her and her inability to fit in with the other kids.

Ziv, who had been accustomed to people gossiping about his idiosyncrasies even before his war against the Corp, was doing marginally better than Blitzy. He still didn’t have any close friends, but his co-workers and students respected his intellectual abilities, which helped his self-esteem. Like Blitzy, he yearned for lasting human relationships, and the fact that he had almost achieved such a thing with Diana and had it abruptly yanked away bothered Ziv to no end.

As Carter’s associates from her “other life” adjusted to their respective new normals, the actions of another party were poised to set all of them on a collision course towards each other.


	16. Meanwhile, in Mega City: Jimmy's Revenge

“Are you comfortable Jimmy?”

“Yeah, gramma. I’m fine.”

“Do you need me to get anything for you, Jimmy?”

“Just the pills and a slice of pizza.”

While the rest of Painted Mesa and the Indian Reservation marched on towards renewal, James Comancho lived with his enabling grandmother, and obsessed over the women who had ruined his life. He hated Rosemary for having the audacity to be happy and successful without him, but he hated Diana Carter, the woman who had shot him, even more. James had suffered constant problems with his knee since the shooting, and developed a pill habit to cope with his chronic pain. He had become a housebound recluse who spent his days watching sports on the televiewer and guzzling pills, while his grandmother took care of him and tried unsuccessfully to prod him into taking some personal initiative. Agnes Comancho told herself that at least “Jimmy” wasn’t running with low-level hoods or smoking marijuana anymore, even though James had simply switched his chemical dependency preferences from one drug to another. Unbeknownst to either of the Comanchos, being shot had inadvertently saved James’ life, since his housebound state meant that he was spared from the purge that had eliminated the low-level drug dealers in the general Painted Mesa area back in 2027. James was fundamentally lazy and a coward, and could only bully people weaker than himself, like Rosemary and his children. Even his previous attempts to be a "bad boy" were done with as little effort as possible, dealing enough marijuana to be seen as a "thug," but not putting in enough effort into his low-level drug-dealing to bring in any significant money. 

“Have you thought about going to see the kids, Jimmy? I do miss seeing them. Little Ford must be almost six now and Meredith is becoming a young lady…”

“You know Rosemary has a restraining order on me,” James interrupted.

“I think you could get it rescinded,” Mrs. Comancho said. “You haven’t been causing any trouble lately.”

“Not while Winston Blackhawk is sheriff,” James said, rummaging through the cushion of his lounge chair to find the televiewer remote. James was an indifferent father even at the best of times, and the restraining order was a convenient excuse to not have to support or interact with his children.

“Maybe I could get Sheriff Blackhawk to at least let me see them,” Mrs. Comancho said. “And then you could see them too.”

“That’s okay, gramma,” James said. “I don’t feel like seeing anyone these days.”

“You should consider going to that new health center,” Mrs. Comancho suggested. “I bet they could help you with your knee so you could walk normal again. That place has done wonders for helping with my diabetes. I’ve been learning that tai chi stuff and even learned how to swim…”

“I’d rather be dead that go to that place,” James said, as he idly flipped through the televiewer channels.

“I know you have a grudge against Ms. Carter because of…the incident,” Mrs. Comancho said hesitantly, not wanting to rile James up by dwelling on the circumstances that had led to his disability. “But you wouldn’t have to see her there. It’s just doctors, nurses, and therapy bots. If you could get your knee fixed, you wouldn’t have to take those pills anymore, and you could go to work or maybe even go to school.”

Although James hated what his life had become, his dislike of work and his abhorrence for anything associated with Diana Carter outweighed his desire to regain his health. He was about to reassure his grandmother that he was fine with the status quo, when he noticed that the televiewer was on the World News Network, where the Peggy Prudence Show was airing. There was a lull in the “missing white woman” stories that were Peggy Prudence’s bread and butter, so she had decided to return to the unsolved mystery of Lady Frenzy, perhaps the whitest white woman to ever go missing.

“TONIGHT ON THE PEGGY PRUDENCE SHOW: WHERE IS LADY FRENZY? MISSING FOR OVER THREE YEARS, THE SHOCKING AND UNEXPECTED DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FASHIONPLATE OF THE CORPORATE WORLD IS ONE OF THE GREATEST MYSTERIES OF OUR TIME!”

“Oh Jimmy, please don’t watch that awful Prudence woman,” Mrs. Comancho chided. “All she does is talk about the most sordid murder stories and missing white women. Why don’t you watch a nice cartoon like _Dino Bot Squad_? You used to love that as a little boy. Better yet, why don’t you stream _Days and Nights of Thunder and Lightning_? Thunder finally got that loan to open his disco, but it’s infested with ghosts.”

 _Days and Nights of Thunder and Lightning_ was another Diana Carter-funded project, one that was the brainchild of a group of enterprising communication students at the Painted Mesa Navajo Community College. Billed as the first Native American/indigenous telenovela, the web-based program followed Thunder Oddcrow and Lightning Soldano, two hapless Navajo lovers, as they embarked on a number of bizarre adventures on and off the reservation. The show was absurd, over the top, and immensely popular. In fact, _Days and Nights of Thunder and Lightning_ was the most popular topic of conversation on Native American social media, and was starting to gain attention from wider society. But James refused to patronize anything related to Diana Carter and voiced his objections to watching the program.

“At least turn away from Peggy Prudence,” Mrs. Comancho said. “Her voice grates on my nerves.”

James was about to change the channel to a sports channel, until he saw the file footage of Lady Frenzy. Like most men, he was immediately inclined to gawk at her figure, but once he got a good look at her face, he knew he was looking at the face of the woman who shot him.

Carter’s tactic for remaining unrecognized in Painted Mesa could be summed up as the “Clark Kent Feint”: deploy a minimal disguise, but act in such a way that was contrary to the person or persona that everyone was looking for. Carter’s plan was also largely based on the generally correct assumptions that no one would ever think to look for Lady Frenzy in a poor border town, and that few people in Painted Mesa paid attention to the news. However, she had failed to take into account that James Comancho was obsessing over her much in the same way Paradim did, albeit for different reasons. Because James was constantly haunted by the visage of the woman who shot him, he was able to recognize that Carter was Lady Frenzy in a way that the Rivases couldn’t, even though they saw her every day.

A number blared across the screen where viewers could call the Corp with information on Lady Frenzy’s whereabouts. James wrote the number down on the paper plate upon which his pizza sat. He shoved the pizza in his mouth, finished it one gulp, and folded the paper plate into one of the left pockets of his bathrobe, while putting his cellphone in the right pocket. James took the cane that was leaning next to the Barcalounger and walked unsteadily to the bathroom, while his grandmother worked a crossword puzzle in the kitchen. Once he was alone in the bathroom, James dialed the number, and fantasized about what he was going to buy with the reward money for his information.

“This is the Robotic Megafact Corporation’s Lady Frenzy Information Hotline,” an automated bot voice said. “Monitor Bot 459312 speaking. Please state your tip.”

“I know exactly where Lady Frenzy is,” James said. “She’s living in Painted Mesa, New Mexico and claiming to be a chick named Diana Carter.”

“Please remain on the line while we transfer your call,” the bot said.

James waited impatiently while a Muzak version of Beethoven’s _Für Elise_ played in the background. After ten minutes of listening to _Für Elise_ on an endless loop, a serpentine voice said, “Dr. Hiss here. What do you want?” 

“Lady Frenzy is Diana Carter, and she lives in Painted Mesa, New Mexico,” James said, imagining all the pills he could buy with the reward money.

“And who are you?”

“James Comancho.”

“Where are you from?”

“I live on the Painted Mesa Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico.”

“Why should I believe that Lady Frenzy, one of the richest and famous people in the world, is hiding in some dump I’ve never even heard of?”

“How should I know? I just know that she is.”

“What proof do you have?”

“That bitch shot me. You don’t forget the face of the person who takes out your kneecap.”

“If that’s the case, why are you only just now calling?”

“I’ve been… under the weather. Plus, I don’t think about the news much, and it only just occurred to me to make the connection. She’s been building a bunch of stuff around here, throwing her weight around and looking like a bigshot. She employs a lot of the people around here.” James failed to mention that his own grandmother, the woman who was graciously supporting and enabling him, had benefited from Carter’s largesse, and had received a loan to start a stand where she sold watercolor paintings to tourists. However, rational self-interest had never been a strong point for James. 

“Where does Lady Frenzy live?”

“I don’t know exactly, but she’s a friend of my ex, Rosemary Blackhawk. Rosemary pulled a restraining order on me, so…”

“Yes, you’ve told me enough,” Hiss said, uninterested in James’s domestic problems.

“Do I get the reward money?” James asked hopefully.

“We’ll get back to you,” Hiss said, ending the call abruptly.

*

Paradim had always assumed that Diana would come back eventually. When she first left, Paradim thought she would come back in a week or so after her anger subsided. But she didn't. After she had been gone for a couple of months, Paradim thought she would be overwhelmed with the twin experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, which would necessitate a return to the only stable person in her life, namely himself. But she didn't. After several years passed, Paradim began to despair of ever finding his lost protégé, until Hiss sent him a memo claiming that he had received a credible tip pertaining to Diana/Frenzy’s whereabouts.

Paradim had heard scattered rumblings about a wealthy, mysterious Argentinian involved in economic redevelopment projects in southern New Mexico, but hadn’t paid attention to the story, since it didn’t involve technology in general or the Corp in particular. However, the more he thought about the matter, the more he realized that this Carter fit Diana’s MO perfectly. Diana had been taken for an Argentinian because of the way she spoke Spanish when she was at the youth detention center, and that would be the perfect disguise to adopt in a predominantly Hispanic region. _Very good_ , _Diana_ , Paradim thought. _You went to a place no one would look for you and built yourself an empire._

Turning to his computer, Paradim did a simple search for “Thomas P. LaFrenz V” and came up with a plethora of buildings that bore his name in southern New Mexico: the Thomas P. LaFrenz V Navajo Health and Rehabilitation Center, the Thomas P. LaFrenz V Memorial Hololibrary at Woodburn Academy, the Thomas P. LaFrenz V Community Center, the Thomas P. LaFrenz V General Hospital, the Thomas P. LaFrenz V. Botanical Garden, the Thomas P. LaFrenz V wing of the African American History Museum of the Southwest, the Thomas P. LaFrenz wing of the Southwestern Fine Arts Gallery, and many more. Diana had so obviously put her mark on Painted Mesa by putting her grandfather’s name on anything and everything she built that Paradim mentally kicked himself for not having considered this possibility before. Paradim ordered Hiss to spy on Painted Mesa using aerial drones and to report back to him when he had specific information about where to find Diana.

“Where did you get this tip?” Paradim asked Hiss, as he reviewed the data that had been gathered on Painted Mesa, New Mexico, two weeks after James Comancho had called the hotline.

“Some idiot from the hotline who claims Frenzy shot him,” Hiss said dismissively. “If the tip pans out, we should just give him a couple of thousand dollars to be rid of him. A poor loser like that should be easily appeased by a modest reward, and he’ll probably just waste it on drugs, booze, and lottery tickets.”

“Agreed,” Paradim said. “Do you know where Frenzy lives?”

“Our stealth drones have indicated that this is her house,” Hiss said, putting a stack of surveillance photographs on Paradim’s desk. “As you can see, it’s a simple bungalow with no security whatsoever, other than a brick wall. As if that’s going to provide any protection from our armies.”

“She probably thought that we’d never find her,” Paradim said. He looked at Hiss’ other photographs and saw Diana walking around Painted Mesa, both alone and in the company of people whose identities were unknown to Paradim. The pictures were out of focus, because the drones had to fly at a high altitude to avoid being seen by people on the ground, but Paradim could definiately tell it was Diana. In many of the photos, she was holding the hand of a toddler that Paradim assumed was the child that she’d risked everything to have.

“Furthermore, I’ve determined that her base of operations is in this building

“What’s the plan of action?” Hiss asked, excited at the possibility of unleashing the full fury of the Corp’s security forces on his hated rival.

“I want you to ‘recover’ Frenzy, but do it discretely,” Paradim said, sensing Hiss’ bloodlust rising. “I need her back here alive, well, and unhurt. If she’s walking around openly with no security of her own, you should have an easy task. Just drive up when she’s walking by herself, pull her into the vehicle, and take off. Remember to recover her alive, Hiss. If something happens to her during this operation, you will pay the ultimate price. You are dismissed.”

Hiss left Paradim’s office with an extra spring in his step, as he imagined all the ways that Frenzy could meet an unfortunate “accident” once he captured her.


	17. Carter Takes Care of Her Own

_November 14, 2029_

_Today was the day my ‘other life’ collided with my present life. I would like to say that I wasn’t surprised by this, but things had been going so well for me that I must admit that I became complacent…_

The most logical and easiest course of action for Hiss would have been for him to do exactly as Paradim had instructed, which was abduct Carter off the street when she was alone. But Hiss had no interest in doing things the easy way, much less the logical way. His lust for revenge against was even stronger than James Comancho’s, and he was intent on making Carter suffer, painfully and publicly. In typical Dr. Hiss fashion, he decided to bring an atom bomb to a knife fight by unleashing the full brunt of the Corp’s hard power on Painted Mesa.

Around 4:30 PM on November 14, 2029, almost three years to the day that Carter first arrived in Painted Mesa, a massive army invaded the town; green bots, security bots, and tank bots choked the streets, accompanied by heli-bots and skyfighters hovering overhead. Leading the charge was Dr. Hiss in his favorite battle bot, as his forces surrounded the former Rub-a-Dub Pub and Lavanderia. The ordinary residents of Painted Mesa had no idea what was happening, and retreated to their homes or businesses, although a few intrepid individuals started filming the invasion on their phones.

“ATTENTION RESIDENTS OF PAINTED MESA!” Hiss shouted through the megaphone in his battle bot. “THE RM CORP IS LOOKING FOR THE CORPORATE FUGITIVE KNOWN AS LADY FRENZY. STAY OUT OF THE WAY OF MY BOTS, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, AND YOU WON’T BE HURT.”

The onlookers tittered in curiosity at Hiss’s announcement; why would he think that someone as rich and famous as Lady Frenzy would be in Painted Mesa? The possibility that local eccentric Diana Carter might be the same person as Lady Frenzy didn’t cross any of their minds.

Among those caught in the melee in the streets was Betty, who had been tasked with bringing Leo back from his _Francais pour enfants_ class. Betty knew the outline of Carter’s “other life,” but not the details, so when she saw the Corp’s troops marching through downtown, she had no clue what was happening. What she did know was that she needed to protect Leo and keep him calm.  

“Look at the soldiers, _Tia_ Betty,” Leo said, looking at the military-style procession with innocent curiosity, as Betty unbuckled him from his car seat in the backseat in her car. She was supposed to reunite Leo with his mother off at the LF Group headquarters, but she quickly realized that it would be impossible for her to navigate the bot choked streets, especially since the army seemed to be converging around the very place she wanted to go. Betty decided that her best option would be to abandon her car and walk to Carter’s house, where she could ensure Leo’s safety.

“Yes, they’re very nice,” Betty said, dragging Leo into an alley away from the main thoroughfare. Having lived in Painted Mesa all her life, Betty knew all the shortcuts in town, and most importantly, the backstreets and alleyways were free of bots.

“I wanna see the soldiers!” Leo protested, as Betty pulled him through a trash filled passageway. “I wanna see them! I wanna see them!”

“We don’t have time,” Betty said, praying that Leo would not choose to throw a tantrum at this most inopportune time. “Sing me the alphabet song in French.”

Thoughts of the “soldiers” left Leo’s mind, and he began singing the French alphabet song he had learned in his class with gusto. Leo knew the alphabet songs in English, Spanish, and French, and he loved singing them over and over again, a sight that warmed his mother’s multilingual heart.

“Keep singing,” Betty said, holding Leo’s hand tightly. “Sing to me in Spanish now.”

Leo sang the alphabet song twenty-five times, alternately freely between languages. When Leo tired of the alphabet song, he switched to the months of the year song he had learned in Spanish. After ten repetitions of the Spanish months of the year, Betty and Leo finally arrived at Carter’s house. Betty rifled through her purse until she found the passcard to open the door. Once inside, Betty breathed a sigh of relief and took out her cellphone to call Carter, who was working at the LF Group headquarters. Meanwhile, Leo switched started chanting the first Latin declension.

“Mensa, mensam, mensae, mensae, mensa,” Leo shouted. “Mensa, mensam, mensae, mensae, mensa.”

Ordinarily, Betty would have told Leo to use his inside voice, but she more concerned with letting Carter know they were safe.

“Carter,” Betty said, as Leo continued to cycle through the first declension. “This is Betty…”

 “Are you safe?” Carter interrupted.

“Yes, Leo and I are at your house,” Betty said. “Have you seen all the bots in the streets? They’re all surrounding your office. What’s going on? Why is the Corp interested in us? Is Veronica okay?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll meet you at the house in a minute.” Carter hung up the phone before Betty could reply, and the latter woman felt like her world was ending.

Betty took Leo next door to her house, where David was helping Marisol and Mateo with their homework. He had managed to pick up the twins from school before the blockade created by Hiss’s forces made entering or leaving Painted Mesa impossible, and he was trying to convince the children that nothing out of the ordinary was occurring.

“Mom, did you see all the bots around?” Mateo said. “We barely made it back home.”

“What’s happening?” Marisol asked. “Are we going to be okay.”

“They seem to be looking for someone,” Betty said, as she maintained her iron grip on Leo’s left hand. Leo could sense the tense atmosphere in the room, and had stopped singing, choosing instead to cling to Betty’s leg for support.

“Those are the Corp’s security bots,” David said. “I recognize them from the news when they were involved in that conflict with that Ziv Zulander guy.”

“But that’s been over for years,” Betty said. “There’s no one here the Corp would care about…” Betty wondered if the invasion was related to Carter in some way, since she didn’t seem surprised or worried about the sudden influx of security bots. Her mind was unable to connect Carter to Lady Frenzy, but she had a suspicion that Carter knew more about the situation than she was willing to admit over the phone. 

*

The only three people in Painted Mesa with a clear understanding about the Corp’s sudden appearance were Carter, Veronica, and Salazar, all of whom were sequestered in the executive suite at the LF Group complex. Carter maintained a composed façade, while Veronica and Salazar were in a near panic.

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised that this day has finally come, ladies,” Carter announced to her two frightened companions. “But I wish it could have waited until Leo was at least in university. Being on the run is very disruptive for a child’s schedule, especially since we’ll have get new identities now.”

“Are you even going to live long enough to make a new identity?” Salazar asked. “Every single road is choked with military bots; there’s no way to get out of town.

“Forget the roads, the entire building is surrounded,” Veronica said. “We’ll be lucky if we’re able to make out down the stairs.”

“This is really unnecessary,” Carter said. “If LLP knows where I am, he could have just called me on my LF Group phone; I would have picked up. This is so like Hiss to needlessly escalate a situation. I wish there was some rational, level-headed person with whom I could talk to, but I just remembered that person used to be me.”

“I’LL MAKE THIS SIMPLE, FRENZY!” Hiss barked through his loudspeaker. “YOU CAN EITHER COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR IN THE AIR IN FIVE MINUTES OR I’LL COMMAND MY ARMY TO LEVEL THIS BUILDING AND EVERYONE IN IT. THE CLOCK IS TICKING; YOU HAVE YOUR CHOICE.”

Rather than comply with Hiss’ order, Carter went to work modifying a burner phone she had in her desk drawer that she used whenever she made calls to Whigby Hall, the Paris office of the House of Lebec, or some other location that would obviously identify her as Diana LaFrenz. She had an idea that would buy her some time to leave town, but she wasn’t sure if it would work or not. Unlike Ziv or Hiss, Carter was not an engineer by training, and she couldn’t just hack into a device and have it do her bidding. However, she did have more knowledge about electronics than the average person, and most importantly, she knew how to reprogram the Corp’s security bots. Carter also knew that for all of Hiss’ brilliance, he was also incredibly lazy and probably hadn’t changed the executive override function since her departure from the Corp.

After finishing her modifications, Hiss shouted, “YOU’VE HAD YOUR CHANCE, FRENZY. NOW PREPARE TO FEEL MY WRATH. HISS TO ALL TROOPS, MOVE IN ON THE BUILDING!”

Carter took a deep breath and spoke into the phone, “This is Lady Frenzy to all units. Executive override of all orders. Hold your fire until I give further instructions.”

The green bots, security bots, and tank bots stopped dead in their tracks, while the skyfighters and heli-bots hovered passively over the LF Group complex.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Carter said, looking out of her window at the frozen army of bots.

“So does that mean we’re safe?” Veronica asked hopefully.

“Not quite,” Carter said. “I need to get the hell out of Dodge, so to speak. This is only a temporary lull, the eye of the storm, so to speak. Let’s go.”

The three women departed the building, though Carter pulled the fire alarm as she left to ensure the safety of the other human workers at the LF Group complex. A great mass of people spilled out into the parking lot, and Carter, Veronica, and Salazar disappeared in the anonymity of the crowd. While the three women made their escape, Hiss threw a tantrum over the impotence of his army.

“HISS TO ALL UNITS, FIRE ON THE BUILDING!” Hiss screamed. “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”

“The order to fire has been overridden by Lady Frenzy,” one of the security bots answered.

“Stupid bots!” Hiss grumbled, turning off the megaphone and punching the control panel of his battle bot in a blind fury. Hiss proceeded to wail, curse, and gnash his teeth, oblivious to the fact that Carter was escaping completely unarmed several yards away from him.

 _It’s good to know that Hiss is still his same immature, delightfully predictable self_ , Carter thought, as she led the way back to her house, which was a ten-minute walk from the LF Group headquarters. When she, Veronica, and Salazar arrived at her house, she was met by Betty and David, with Marisol, Mateo, and Leo tagging behind. The children could sense that something was wrong based on the way their parents were acting, even if they didn’t know what it was, and they were crying hard.

“I have to leave town right away,” Carter said, before the Rivases could say anything. “David, grab my trunk. Leo, fill up your backpack with your favorite things.”

“What?” Betty said, while David retrieved Carter’s trunk and Leo ran to his room to pack his most valued possessions.

“This is all about me,” Carter said. “If I’m not here, there’s no problem. If I don’t leave, Hiss will simply come back with more bots and level the entire town.”

“What does this have to do with you?” Betty asked, afraid to know the answer.

Carter paused for a minute, and Salazar and Veronica held their breaths, curious to know how Betty would react when she learned the truth about her one-time boarder’s past.

“You might say that in another life, so to speak, I used to work for the Corp. And by work for the Corp, I mean run the place, because I could never be someone else’s employee.”

Carter waited to see if Betty would put two and two together, but she just stared back with an uncomprehending expression.

 _I guess if you don’t pay attention to business news, then the Corp’s doings are just background noise_ , Carter thought.

“Carter used to be Lady Frenzy,” Veronica said. “Jesus Christ, Betty, we don’t have time for this.”

Betty blinked several times in astonishment, while Mateo said, “Who’s Lady Frenzy?”

Carter felt somewhat crestfallen that the younger generation was ignorant of the magnificent corporate bitch known as Lady Frenzy, but then she remembered that when she was their age she only knew about Paradim because they had met face-to-face.

“So you lied to us?” Betty asked.

“No, I didn’t lie,” Carter insisted. “Everything I told you was true. I just left out all of the identifying details of everyone involved in my other life to protect the ignorant. I told the truth and nothing but the truth, but not the entire truth. And I did it because I couldn’t have Hiss coming in and ruining this town that I – that we – have worked so hard to build. I don’t know how Hiss discovered that I was here, but if I had divulged the truth about my past earlier, this knowledge would have spread all over town and back to Mega City within a week. Until now you were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt that I had legitimate reasons for being vague about my past. Now you know and have seen for yourself why I had to do what I did.”

“But Veronica knows…” Betty said.

“That’s because Veronica, unlike you, doesn’t care about hospitality or being non-judgmental, and she rooted out my real identity within a month of my arrival,” Carter said. “And Salazar recognized me the moment she saw me.”  

“What’s going to happen?” Marisol asked, unable to grasp what her _Tia_ Carter was saying.

“Simply put, I’ve got to leave,” Carter said, as David reappeared with her steamer trunk. Leo bounced in the room behind David with his backpack, which he had filled with his favorite board books and stuffed animals.

“All done,” Leo announced.

“I need you to keep Leo for me,” Carter said. “I don’t know if I can protect him where I’m going, and I doubt the Corp cares about him. If he stays here, at least I’ll know he’s being cared for properly, and his routine won’t be disturbed.”

“Leo can’t stay here,” Veronica objected. “A bunch of Mexicans with a blond kid, people will think we stole him or something.”

“You can just tell people that you have a Swedish grandmother and light skin and blonde hair are a recessive trait,” Carter said. “If you say it with enough confidence, you can get others to believe you. Besides, everyone in Painted Mesa has already seen you walking with Leo, so it won’t arouse any suspicion.”

Carter was about to continue her arguments in favor of keeping Leo in Painted Mesa, when a loud explosion disabused her of the notion. She looked out the window, and saw that Hiss’s battlebot had blasted a hole in the wall surrounding her house.  

“Keep the children quiet and stay down,” Carter said, taking some army-navy store body army out of her front closet. “I’ll handle this.” She went to the gun safe and had her right hand-print and left cornea scanned, while the others took cover under furniture. Once the safe accepted her bio-lock information, Carter took her modified assault rifles out of the case and purposefully walked out the front door to confront her enemy.

Carter may have been a bitch, but she was a bitch who took care of her own. The welfare of the people of Santa Marta or the island nation of Austola didn’t arouse whatever passed for a conscience with Carter, but when it came to the people she regarded as “her vassals,” she would move heaven and earth to do what needed to be done.

Looking through the hole in the wall, Carter saw Hiss racing towards her in his battlebot. She took her modified AK-47 and fired several rounds of laser fire through the hole, aiming at the front tires to halt the battlebot’s progress. The tires exploded once they were fired upon, and the battlebot careened into a nearby tree of which Carter had been particularly fond.

 _Poor tree_ , Carter thought, as she shouldered her rifle and went back into the house. _At least you went out by putting Hiss temporarily out of service for me._

“Did you kill him?” David asked from his hiding place behind the living room couch that he was sharing with Betty and the twins.

“No, he’s just stunned for the moment,” Carter said. “I expect him to rage for five minutes or so, which is enough time for me to make my escape. Come on Leo. We’re going on an adventure. Yes, I’ve decided to take him with me, since I’m doubtful that you all would be willing to shoot first and ask questions later, a tactic that is necessary to deal with the current situation.”

Leo reluctantly left his spot under the kitchen table where he had taken cover with Veronica and Salazar. His formerly ordered world was disintegrating for reasons that no one seemed able to explain, but Leo assumed that as long as he was with his mommy, everything would turn out for the best.

David dragged the trunk out to the garage and put it in the trunk of Carter’s tank-like station wagon, while Betty buckled Leo into his car seat in the backseat and put his backpack on the floor in front of him. Carter propped her collection of guns rather precariously in the passenger-side front seat, so she could have free access to them when needed, while keeping them out of reach of little hands.

“I want Kitty!” Leo said, struggling to get out of the car seat. Carter reached into Leo’s backpack, pulled the stuffed tiger out, and placed it into the toddler’s eager hands.

 _Hopefully, Kitty’s company will help keep Leo calm on this journey into the unknown_ , Carter thought.

“Where are you going?” Salazar asked.

“There’s a British embassy that recently opened in El Paso, Texas,” Carter said, getting behind the driver’s seat. “If I’m not intercepted, I can probably get there in an hour or so. To preemptively answer any questions you might have regarding that, I do have a British passport, although I don’t really consider myself British. Leo has dual citizenship, and the embassy should let us stay there for a while. Salazar, I need you to contact the traditional media and spread the news of my flight on Spanish language social media. Veronica, I need you to move into my house temporarily so no one steals the copper or anything like that.”

Veronica wanted to say that she needed to be concerned about the copper in her own house, but instead she said, “Since I’m moving in, can I have the keys to your convertible?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Carter said. “I’d prefer not to have it stolen, if at all possible.”

“Are you gonna to be okay _Tia_ Carter?” Mateo asked, his face full of worry.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been through this, so I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end,” Carter said, completely evading the boy’s question.

“I don’t want you to go,” Marisol cried. “Why do you have to leave?”

“Working at the Corp is kind of like being in a gang or a cult,” Carter said, turning the ignition key. “You’re in for life and the only way out is in a pine box, so to speak.”

“Are you gonna die _Tia_ Carter?” Marisol said.

“It’s not my intention,” Carter replied. “What we’re experiencing now is not a goodbye, just a temporary parting of ways,” Carter assured her. “I’m very grateful for all that you’ve done for me, because you made me feel like I was part of a family for the first time, and not just an entry on a family pedigree. Send my regards to the Blackhawks, the Porters, and Archie.”

With that, Carter drove out of her garage and into the open road. She passed by Hiss, who had finally managed to get out of his battlebot, which now had a large tree lying across the windshield. Carter honked her horn to get Hiss’s attention, and flashed the victory sign and a very cocky grin, before speeding off towards the highway. Carter knew she was needlessly aggravating a very dangerous opponent, but she just couldn’t pass up a chance to experience the orgasm of conquest. She broke through the blockade of fearsome-looking but immobilized bots by shooting her modified AK-47 at them, clearing a path for her car to go through.

Carter was able to get a good ten-minute head start on Hiss once she reached the interstate, but he quickly caught up to her; twenty minutes into her journey, she saw her opponent in the rear-view mirror in a new battlebot that he had had enough sense to bring with him in case the first one became incapacitated. She could also hear the tell-tell sound of a news heli-bot hovering overhead, which indicated that Salazar had done her job in contacting the media.

 _If nothing else, I’ll give the people watching at home a thrill_ , Carter thought, as she bobbed and weaved through the other cars. She put in the first CD of Solti’s version of _Die Walkure_ in the car's CD player, and cranked up the speakers; the ride of the Corp’s Valkyrie had begun.


	18. Meanwhile, in Mega City: The Ride of the Valkyrie, Caught on Tape

It had taken almost three years, but Ziv had finally been accepted by his peers at the college. While he didn't have any particular friends to socialize with on a one-on-one basis, he was invited to after work happy hours, holiday parties, and other group outings, which still constituted the most robust human-based social life Ziv had ever experienced. Of course, Ziv didn't date, since he considered himself married, and his co-workers understood that any topic regarding the Corp was off-limits in his presence, if only out of a sense of propriety. Thus, Ziv rejoiced in his co-workers' announcements of engagements, marriages, and babies, even if these pleasures were denied to him, because of his unusual circumstances. However, these tenuous social bonds that Ziv had worked so hard to cultivate were broken when Carter's wild ride became the number one news story. Ziv was in a pub with a number of his colleagues in the robotics department, when he noticed the other patrons were transferring their attention to the televiewer screens, all of which blared the familiar “BREAKING NEWS” graphic.

“What do you think is going on?” asked Dr. Andrei Bykov.

“Probably some celebrity OD-ed,” Dr. Angela Bardo said dismissively. “That former child star Cindy Atkins has been a dead woman walking for ages. That's what you get for having your own show when you're ten.”

“Hey, _Pony Academy_ was a good show,” insisted Dr. Rebecca Schroder, the resident pop culture nerd. “Although I did think the follow-up series, _Pony College_ was somewhat derivative…”

“Be quiet,” Ziv said. “I want to hear what's going on.”

“Good evening, this is Lonnie Chang from the World News Network,” the familiar voice said. “For those viewers just joining us, there is a bizarre spectacle playing out on a New Mexico highway. A 1995 Mercedes Benz station wagon has been involved in a high speed chase with what appears to a small army of security bots from the RM Corp for the past half hour. Our helibot correspondent, Roger Ramirez has more.”

 _The Corp_? Ziv thought. _I thought they were supposed to be behaving._

“Thank you, Lonnie,” the breathless reporter said from his bird’s eye perch. “I don't mind saying that I've been on this job for almost thirty-five years, and I haven't seen a spectacle like this since the OJ Simpson chase.”

“Really?” Lonnie said, surprised by the comparison.

“And at least with the OJ Simpson Bronco chase we at least knew what was going on, while the identity of the driver of the Mercedes station wagon and the reason why he or she is being pursued by the Corp is a complete mystery. Now, the license plate on the vehicle reads 'MIKE LF,' and an unnamed source has told us that it is registered to a Michael Frederick David LaFrenz. Our research department has said that Mr. LaFrenz, who was a British national, died in a car crash back in 1997, which means that the driver is either a relative of Michael LaFrenz or someone he sold the car to.”

The mention of Michael LaFrenz made Ziv's skin grow cold and his stomach lurch. He still had one of the late Michael LaFrenz's morning suits in his closet back at his underground home, and knew that Diana had inherited his car collection. Ziv’s nausea became more pronounced when he saw Hiss’s battlebot fire several rounds of laser fire aimed directly at the station wagon. However, to the shock and confusion of Ziv, Lonnie Chang, and everyone else watching the chase, the car appeared to absorb the lasers, leaving its occupant(s) unscathed.

“Did you see that?” Dr. Moore said, transfixed by the flickering images on the televiewer. “How could any vehicle survive a round of direct laser fire?”

“It must have been some kind of glitch in the televiewer transmission,” Dr. Bardo said, staring intently at the screen.

 _It has to be her_ , Ziv thought. _She must have gotten her hands on some of Professor Borenstein’s left over laser-proof alloy, and put some kind of protective coating on it. No one else would have access to it._

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Lonnie said. “But do I hear some kind of opera in the background?”

“Yes, you are hearing music,” Roger said. “According to our research team, it’s _Die Walkure_ by the nineteenth century German composer Richard Wagner.”

“Man, that’s crazy,” Dr. Bardo said. “Who ever heard of playing opera during a high-speed chase?”

Ziv stomach performed some additional flip-flops. No one but Diana LaFrenz would blare Wagnerian opera while in the middle of a hot pursuit. He watched as the station wagon took an exit off the highway and moved into the surface streets of El Paso. Large numbers of people, mostly Hispanic, lined the streets, cheering and holding signs of support for the unknown fugitive. Salazar had spread the word on Spanish social media that Diana Carter, the mysterious Argentine investor, was fleeing to El Paso, and her admirers showed up en masse to catch a glimpse of their enigmatic heroine.

“I see a sizable crowd has formed,” Lonnie said.

“Yes, Lonnie,” Roger said. “They’re holding signs that mostly say variations on ‘Go Carter Go!’ or ‘Run Carter Run’ in Spanish, though there are others as well. It seems that these people know more than we do about who’s in that car.”

The chase continued on for about fifteen minutes, with Hiss continuing to fire at the station wagon in vain and the other vehicle making its way purposefully through the streets of El Paso. Ziv was both repelled and fascinated by the spectacle, wanting both to turn away in horror and to see what Diana’s endgame was. He thought about fleeing the pub, but where would he go? What would Blitzy and the BOYZZ have to say about the chase? They had to be watching, since the televiewer or some other equivalent device was always on in the living room…

Ziv was knocked out of his thoughts when he heard the distinct sound of burning rubber on concrete. He looked up at the screen and saw that the station wagon had made a sharp U-turn towards the office complex that (unknown to him) housed the British Embassy. Hiss tried to copy the station wagon’s path, but his battlebot had such a high center of gravity that it turned over unceremoniously midway into the turn. The driver of the station wagon used his/her opponent’s m to enter the parking garage for the building and disappeared from view.

“Well, it looks like the driver of that vehicle knew where he or she wanted to go,” Roger observed, after waiting for about five minutes for something or someone to emerge outside the parking garage.

“Indeed, Roger,” Lonnie began. “I…Wait a minute. I’m getting word from my producer that representatives from Diana Carter, the occupant of the car, is requesting an interview to take place at 6 PM, Mountain time at the British embassy in El Paso, Texas. This is…highly unorthodox to say the least, but after the commotion we’ve just witnessed, it’s not an opportunity I’m going to pass up.”

“I...have to go,” Ziv said, hastily getting up from his seat and leaving some cash behind to pay for his food and drinks. His colleagues protested his premature exit, exhorting him to stay behind and watch the upcoming interview with the mysterious Diana Carter. Ziv didn't know where he wanted to go, but he knew he needed to be alone to try and figure out what to do next.


	19. Diana Carter Kills Lady Frenzy

In her typical authoritarian manner, Carter had marched into the embassy with her and Leo’s passports, demanding sanctuary, and making copious mention of her titles. The staff had been unable to resist her charisma and air of entitled authority, and gave the duo a back room they could temporarily use for their own purposes.

Safely ensconced in her room, Carter looked in the mirror, and changed her make-up profile and hairstyle so she looked more like Lady Frenzy. She thought how odd it was that she was resuming the role of Lady Frenzy, since for all intents and purposes, she was about to kill off the persona that she and Paradim had created eight years ago. Perhaps “kill off” wasn't the right phrase; rather, Carter planned to simply merge Lazy Frenzy with Diana LaFrenz and Diana Carter. Aware of the need to choose the perfect outfit for her upcoming interview, she decided on something that was a mix of Diana Carter and Lady Frenzy: a skin-tight “Blue-Eyed Devil” t-shirt that Amir Porter had made for her after she had given birth, an equally tight pair of House of Lebec black jeans, and a custom House of Lebec leather jacket.   

Since Carter was as obsessed with Leo's clothes as she was with her own attire, she changed him into a fresh monogrammed sweater vest, collared shirt, short pants, knee socks, and loafers. This confused Leo, because although he couldn’t tell time, he had an internal clock that told him that he was supposed to be winding down for the day, not getting dressed.

“Time for bed soon,” Leo informed Carter, as she shined his shoes.

“We’re not going to bed now,” Carter said, as she brushed Leo’s unruly golden curls into something more manageable for the camera. “We’re going to be on the televiewer.”

“Televiewer?”

“Yes, we’re going to be on the televiewer, and are all going to see us.”

“How are we gonna fit in the televiewer?”

“Special cameras are going to be filming us, so we appear on the televiewer. You’ve seen video cameras at home.”

“Oh,” Leo replied, although he was still unsure how this scheme was going to work.

“If you do a good job and behave yourself, you can pick out any stuffed animal you want from the Steiff catalog.” Carter didn’t like bribing Leo for good behavior, but she reasoned that she couldn’t take any chances; this was her first and only chance to make a good impression on the media and the viewing public, and she couldn’t ruin it by having Leo throw a tantrum on national TV.

“Can Kitty come too?”

“Yes, I’m sure everyone will want to meet Kitty too. Let’s go out into the lobby to meet Ms. Chang.”

Carter came out of her room, holding Leo in her arms, who in turn was holding Kitty. She wasn't wild about the idea of broadcasting Leo's face on the televiewer for every pervert and potential kidnapper to see, but she knew the presence of a cute kid would automatically endear her to the viewing public. The camera crew was busy setting up in the lobby of the embassy, and Chang herself was having her makeup retouched. The embassy workers were standing on the edges on the lobby, gawking at the crew and wondering what was happening. Carter felt uncharacteristically nervous, so she reminded herself that she needed to get her narrative out as an oppressed single mother out before the Corp released a counter-narrative that claimed she was an embezzler or insider trader. Lonnie noticed Carter/Frenzy with a look of noticeable shock before beckoning her to come talk to her.

“It’s been a long time,” Lonnie said to Carter

“It has been,” Carter admitted, as she sat down on the couch opposite Chang with Leo sitting in her lap.

"What have you been up to?" Lonnie continued.

“What haven’t I been up to?” Carter replied cryptically.

“And who’s that you have with you?” Lonnie said, pointing to Leo.

“My son,” Carter said. “Say hello to Ms. Chang, Leo.”

“Hewo, Ms. Chang,” Leo said, reaching out to shake Lonnie’s hand. “My name is Leopold Cawter. Pweased to meet you.”

The camera crew chuckled, and Lonnie took the toddler in her arms and began cooing over him rapturously.  

Carter beamed, partly out of motherly pride, but also because she knew her charm offensive was working.

“We need to mic you,” said one of the members of the camera crew to Carter.

“Sure,” Carter said, as he attached the microphone to the collar of her shirt.

“I would tell you to get your make-up done for the camera, but it looks like you’ve already done that,” Lonnie said.

“I’m always ready for the camera,” Carter said with a slight smirk.

Lonnie smiled back weakly. Lady Frenzy had always reminded her of a superficially domesticated wolf, a beautiful, feral creature that might lick your hand or rip your throat out without warning. Anxieties and misgivings aside, Lonnie readied herself as the cameras prepared to roll.

“This is Lonnie Chang, reporting live from the British Embassy in El Paso, Texas. I’m joined here by Lady Frenzy and her new addition, Leo, who I hope we’ll be able to become better acquainted with later.”

Carter waved to the camera with a casual yet cocky gesture, which Leo mimicked with child-like enthusiasm.

“You’re looking quite well, Lady Frenzy,” Lonnie continued.

“Thank you, Ms. Chang,” Carter answered. “My current circumstances have been very agreeable for me.”

“As you may recall, the last time most of us saw you, you weren’t looking too well. You were suffering from ‘exhaustion’ and there were rumors you had been hospitalized.” Lonnie showed Carter a paparazzi photo of her being escorted by nurse bots from one of the Corp’s private supersonic jets, in which she looked like an attractive corpse that had died with its eyes open.

“That was a very difficult time for me, Lonnie,” Carter sighed. “I was suffering from a great deal of mental trauma. I had taken a vacation, a honeymoon you might say, to my ancestral seat in Grimlyshire, England.”

 “And Ziv Zulander was with you?”

“Yes, he was.” Carter wanted to be diplomatic with what she said about past events, because her end game was to be reconciled to both Paradim and Ziv at some point in the future. However, she had no qualms about throwing Blitzy or Hiss under the bus, because she viewed them as being the primary sources of her current and past woes.

“The reason why I look so sickly in that photo is because I had just suffered from a major emotional blow,” Carter continued. “Several blows, actually. First, Ziv’s younger sister Blitzy viciously and maliciously destroyed my family’s World War I monument in a foolhardy and unnecessary attempt to ‘rescue’ him. You can look at the damage that was done in these photos.”

Carter pulled out a cache of photos from her purse of the ruined war monument and gave them to Lonnie.

“That’s…quite extensive,” Lonnie said in astonishment, as Leo began to squirm in her lap.

“Yes, it was. Of course, I wasn’t going to let that mess stand around indefinitely. I went to Painted Mesa to secure the services of a local artist, Mr. Louis Porter, to restore the war monument to its previous condition, and I’m glad to say that it’s nearing completion. I’d also like to mention that his son Amir is responsible for this fine ‘Blue-Eyed Devil’ t-shirt in case anyone at home wants one.”

“So you went to Painted Mesa to get this sculpture fixed?”  

“Exactly. Closely related to that is the fact that Blitzy kidnapped Ziv, an action that was going against his own will, not to mention mine. Shortly after that picture was taken, I found out I was pregnant. If I look sick, it’s probably due to morning sickness.”

Carter knew that the real reason she looked so awful in those paparazzi pictures had more to do with the mental hospital in Grimlyshire giving her enough sedatives to put down an elephant than morning sickness, but the last thing she wanted to do was to admit her mental hygiene might be suspect on national TV.

“But why did you have to leave the Corp to have the monument fixed? Surely, this Mr. Porter could have done his work without you being physically present in Painted Mesa?”

“Probably, but the truth is I had reached a point in my life where I had concluded that I had accomplished everything I could at the Corp and was looking for new vistas,” Carter said, omitting the part where Paradim had demanded she get an abortion, because she knew that would look bad to outsiders. She had retroactively decided that this unreasonable intrusion into her reproductive life had been a well-intentioned, if ham-fisted, desire on the part of Paradim to look out for her mental and physical health.

“And all this happened when you found out you were pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to sound indecorous, but who’s Leo’s father?”

“Ziv Zulander, of course.”

“Does he know?”

“He does now.” Carter permitted herself a slight laugh, thinking about how he must be freaking out as he watched the interview.

“But in all seriousness, I don’t want you to think he was a deadbeat dad or anything like that,” Carter added, mindful of how making Ziv look bad would not help her endgame. “I have no doubt that if life had gone as it should have gone, we would have been in Painted Mesa together, raising Leo as a normal couple.”

“But…” Lonnie pressed.

“But as I mentioned, that sister of his decided to intervene in his – that is, _our_ – life. After she kidnapped him, I didn’t have any means of contacting him. I couldn’t wait around for Ziv to show up, so I just had to pick myself and do what needed to be done.”

“You didn’t have a cellphone number or an email address?”

“No.”

Carter realized it sounded absurd that she didn’t have a cellphone number of email address for her erstwhile husband, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that; life was often absurd and one simply had to make do with the circumstances one was dealt.

“If you left the Corp of your own accord and on good terms, why were involved in a high-speed chase with Dr. Hiss and the Corp’s forces?”

“I have no idea. The unfortunate truth is that Dr. Hiss and I have not always been on the best terms, and his temperament is such that he often feels compelled to needlessly escalate a situation when negotiation would be the wiser option.”

Lonnie was positive Carter/Frenzy knew exactly why she had been pursued by the Corp, but knew she wasn’t going to get anything out her that she didn’t want to tell. That Carter/Frenzy had been willing to talk at all to her was incredible, given how she had previously shied away from direct communication with the media.

“To go back to a previous question,” Carter continued. “I liked living in Painted Mesa. For the first time, I got to be a ‘regular person,’ however you want to define that phrase. For a while I lived with this very hospitable couple, David and Betty Rivas, and they were very solicitous towards me.”

“And nobody recognized you?” Lonnie asked incredulously.

“No, almost nobody pays attention to the news. It’s sort of like with Clark Kent, where you can walk around without much of a disguise as long as you create a different persona. However, I don’t really think of Diana Carter as being a different persona so much as she’s a different aspect of my personality.”

“So Diana Carter is just another version of Lady Frenzy?”

“Actually, my legal name is Diana LaFrenz. Countess Diana LaFrenz of Grimlyshire, to be exact, but I don’t want to be too pretentious. Lady Frenzy is merely a _nom de guerre_ , you might say. But enough of this unpleasantness. We should talk a bit to Leo. It’s important to me that Leo become multilingual, and he’s learning English, Spanish, French, German, and even a little Latin. Leo, show Ms. Chang how you can recite the first declension in Latin.”

Leo, deathly bored of having to sit around and listen to adults talk about boring grown-up business, had been squirming and whimpering in Lonnie’s lap throughout the interview. He lit up at the chance to perform for Lonnie, and didn’t disappoint when he chanted out “mensa, mensae, mensam, etc.” with great enthusiasm. After finishing with the first declension, Carter chatted with Leo in Spanish and then French to show off his skills in living languages. Lastly, Carter asked Leo questions in English about his daily routine, and he responded in complete, grammatically correct sentences (much to Carter’s relief, he did not mention going to the bathroom). Lonnie and the camera crew applauded at the display, which compelled Leo to take a bow and wave to his audience; just like his mother, Leo was a born performer. After finishing his third bow, Leo emitted a huge yawn, indicating that he was tired from the day’s events.

“I suppose that means we should end this tête-à-tête for now,” Carter said, taking Leo into her arms. “I bid you good night, Ms. Chang.”

Carter and Leo left to retire to their shared room, while Lonnie was left wondering what exactly she had just witnessed.

*

Immediately after the conclusion of Carter's interview with Lonnie Chang, Painted Mesa was swamped with media from all over the world, wanting to know how the world's most famous woman had managed to live more or less openly in a Southwestern backwater for three years without being detected. In particular, there was interest in Betty and David Rivas, the hapless couple who had decided that Carter was an innocent in need of help. So now, these two unfortunate individuals who had always thought of themselves of small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things were now the center of attention of an international media maelstrom they were ill-equipped to handle.

“How could you not know that your boarder was Lady Frenzy?” a reporter from _Der Spiegel_ asked David.

“Why would I?” David said, clearly overwhelmed by the crush of reporters surrounding him. “No one important ever comes out here.”

“She didn’t strike you as unusual in any way?”

“Yeah, but a lot of people are unusual. She didn’t strike me as being any more unusual than anyone else.”

Veronica, on the other hand, rose to the occasion to become Carter's unofficial spokesperson to the media (not wanting to further arouse the Corp's ire, Salazar, the official Minister of Propaganda, did her work behind the scenes), and she went straight to the personality that held the most hostility to her friend's most notorious guise.

“THIS IS PEGGY PRUDENCE, COMING TO YOU LIVE FROM PAINTED MESA, NEW MEXICO, THE SMALL TOWN WHERE FUGITIVE CEO LADY FRENZY LIVED – CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? – UNDETECTED FOR THREE YEARS! WITH A BABY TO BOOT! JOINING ME IS LADY FRENZY'S ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT, VERONICA RAMOS.”

“Thank you for having me, Ms. Prudence,” Veronica said, making sure that she used the best Queen's English for her national televiewer debut. She wished she could have changed into some more business-like attire that hid her numerous tattoos, something that didn't make her look like a stereotypical _chola_ , but she hadn't dressed that morning thinking the day would end with her having cameras from all over the world thrust in her face.

“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT; LADY FRENZY LIVED IN YOUR HOUSE FOR THREE YEARS AND YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHO SHE WAS?”

“No, I knew that Diana Carter had been Lady Frenzy from the beginning. It just wasn't relevant as far as I was concerned.”

“HOW COULD THAT NOT BE RELEVANT, MS. RAMOS? HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH A WOMAN LIKE THAT AROUND YOUR SON?”

“And why would I have problem with a 'woman like that'?”

“SHE KIDNAPPED YVONNE IVERSON!”

“I know this may be hard for you to believe, Ms. Prudence, but not everyone who gets brought before a judge or a commission or whatever is guilty. It's been more than three years, Ms. Prudence. You need to just accept the outcome of the Department of Justice's investigation and let it go.” Veronica still wasn't convinced that Carter was completely blameless in the Yvonne Iverson affair, but she did know that her friend had been cleared by the Department of Justice, which meant that she was not guilty from a legal perspective.

“MY RESEARCH TEAM INDICATES THAT YOU WERE ARRESTED AND DID TIME FOR A LIQUOR STORE ROBBERY BACK IN 2019, ISN'T THAT RIGHT, MS. RAMOS?”

“Yes,” Veronica said, irritated but not surprised that Prudence would bring up her youthful crimes to defame her character. “I was left holding the getaway car when two of my so-called friends decided to hold up a liquor store and not tell me. I was guilty of choosing the wrong friends, but I didn't stick a gun in anyone's face or take anyone's property. But that's not relevant to the current discussion. Ms. Carter has done a lot of things to help the people around here. Tell me, Ms. Prudence, what have you done to help anyone lately?”

“EXCUSE ME?” There were audible gasps from the camera crew and others working behind the scenes; no one had ever dared challenge Peggy Prudence on her own turf before.

“You heard me,” Veronica said. “All you ever do on this show is engage in self-promotion, rumor, gossip, and innuendo, all under the pretenses that you're somehow helping people who have been victimized by crime. If you aren't aware of it by now, seeing your face on TV doesn't do a damn thing other than advance your own personal Peggy Prudence brand. Really helping crime victims would mean advocating for increased access to mental health services for people who've been traumatized violence, especially people in low-income areas, which is exactly what Ms. Carter has been doing. Just listening to you yammer on about the missing white chick of the week isn't doing anyone any favors, not even for the white chick in question.”

At the moment, the mic was viciously ripped from Veronica's shirt, and the interview ended. But Veronica didn't care, because she knew she was doing exactly what her friend would have wanted by putting Peggy Prudence in her place.

Carter's other associates also made the rounds, eager to defend their friend and benefactor from possible misrepresentation. Rosemary was a particularly zealous defender, providing a tearful testimonial about how Carter had defended her and her children from her violent ex and jump-started her writing career.

“I don't care that she used to be Lady Frenzy,” Rosemary said to a camera crew from Germany. “Anyone who stops a psycho from killing a woman and her children should be considered a hero. Not only has she helped me with my writing, but she’s helped the kids out with their homework. So what if she was living under an assumed identity? Lots of people come out to the desert and reinvent themselves. There's no law against it.”

Not to be outdone, Mr. Porter was interviewed by a reporter from the BBC, and remained his usual outrageous self, much to the shock of his stodgy interlocutor.

“You know why the Corp is after Ms. Carter, right?” Mr. Porter said, as if what he was about to say should be obvious to any rational thinking person. “It's because she was trying to uplift the black man, the brown man, and the red man, and the Establishment didn't like it. Yes, I know the camera's on. So what?”

Not only were the various friends, allies, and associates of Diana Carter clamoring to provide on-air character assessments, but the individuals who had knew the young Diana LaFrenz and her “wicked parents” were also crawling out of the woodwork. Watching the TV her room in her room at the British Embassy, Carter was dismayed (but not surprised) to see people she hadn't seen in decades discussing the aspects of her personal history that she had worked hard to keep private.

“It was all a very unfortunate situation,” Ike the bartender said, looking considerably older than the last time Carter had seen him. His once voluminous Afro was replaced by a short, grey-flecked crew cut, and his face was marked with bags and wrinkles. “You know, all the parents were interested in was partying, the sex, the drugs, that sort of thing. And poor Diana was just, you know, an afterthought. We really didn't see Diana much. A couple times of year, maybe. Probably the best for her.”

Carter sighed, changed the channel, and saw a lean, cadaverous-looking man that she recognized as the former captain of the _Naughty Bits_ being interviewed by a French news crew.

“The late Lord and Lady LaFrenz were what is politely referred to as hedonists,” the ex-captain said, as he nervously twitched his veiny hands. “Their whole existence was devoted to sex and drugs, drugs and sex, and the people they associated with were the same way. It didn’t matter if it was men, women, couples, groups, whatever. It was just a non-stop party every night, and if you weren’t putting out, you weren’t getting in.”

“ _And where was the young Lady Frenzy during all this debauchery_?” the reporter said in French, eager for more lascivious details.

“Well, she wasn’t involved in the partying, if that’s what you mean,” the ex-captain said, once the reporter’s question was translated into English. “She was only a child, and an isolated child at that. She spent most of her time with some Swiss governess. Honestly, I have no idea why she was ever there in the first place; the _Naughty Bits_ was no place for a child.”

Carter breathed a sigh of relief that the former captain hadn’t suggested that she was some sexually precocious Lolita, even if he was courting the media with salacious stories. She changed the channel yet again, and saw the most shocking thing imaginable, a blurry cellphone video of her six-year old self playing the piano, while she and Tommy sang Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets” in the ballroom of the _Naughty Bits_. Someone was giving a running commentary on the tape, but Carter had decided that she had had enough of the media for one night and turned the televiewer off without bothering to learn who was speaking or what the source of the tape had been.

Carter looked over at Leo, who slept peacefully on the bed, oblivious to the crisis his existence was causing. It was the middle of night in Oxfordshire, meaning that Ms. Schelling had no idea that she was going to wake up to find paparazzi camped outside Whigby Hall and her college at Oxford University. Carter thought how unfortunate it was that Ms. Schelling had to be dragged into this mess, but Paradim had put her and everyone associated with her into an impossible situation. At least Ms. Schelling could be counted on to be discrete and give a “no comment” to the media.

Most important to Carter was that she had an advantage over the Corp by getting her narrative, vague and censored as it, out in public first. Hopefully, the televiewer and Internet audience would understand that she was simply a woman who had wanted to live and love on her own terms, take care of her son, and be a helpful benefactor towards her chosen community. In other words, she was just an average billionaire, genius, single mother trying to make it in a cruel, unforgiving world. The question was, whether she could develop a long-term strategy to reconcile with the Corp, or at the very least evade the Corp's security forces long enough to return to the security of her mountain hideout.


	20. Meanwhile, in Mega City: Awkward Conversations

As Carter basked in her post-interview glow, Ziv was afraid to return home. He had watched the interview on his phone, as he and Twig drove around aimlessly, his sense of dread increasing each second. As soon as he saw Lonnie Chang in the company of Diana/Frenzy and an unknown but strangely familiar toddler, he knew what was going to happen. Even worse, he knew that Blitzy and the BOYZZ must have seen the interview, since the televiewer was always running in the living room, and the Zulander household was a news junkie collective. Ziv checked the text and voice mail messages on his cell phone, and saw that he had been deluged with irate missives left by various acquaintances, including (but not limited to) Alicia, Millie Ramsey, and Una O'Connor, all demanding to know why he had a secret child with “that woman.” Since human procreation and male-female relationships were beyond Twig’s understanding, the stoic BOYZZ had the good sense to remain silent. However, Ziv knew he couldn’t just stay out indefinitely, and ordered Twig to take them home, bracing himself for the inevitable storm.

At first, Ziv thought he might be able to sneak in the house and into his room without anyone noticing he had arrived, but that was wishful thinking. No sooner had he gotten off the elevator when he heard Blitzy’s enraged voice screech, “YOU!”

Ziv looked helplessly at Twig, who shot him a look that said, _You’re on your own buddy._

Blitzy marched into the narrow corridor that connected the elevator to the living room, with all the BOYZZ except for the Talking Heads following in her wake. Ziv was trapped, both metaphorically and figuratively.

“Hi, Blitz,” Ziv said sheepishly. “I’m guess you saw the interview with Lonnie Chang. It seems to be all anyone’s talking about…”

“Don’t you ‘Hi, Blitz’ me,” Blitzy snapped. “How could you have a kid with that woman and not tell me?”

“I didn’t know…” Ziv protested.

“Shut up!” Blitzy shouted,

Ziv had been prepared to passively accept his public humiliation so Blitzy could experience a catharsis that would cause everything to go back to normal, but then he asked himself what he had done to merit such treatment. His only “crime” had been that he had fallen in love with someone Blitzy didn’t like, something that happened every day, in families all over the world. Why should he be ashamed of wanting what every normal twenty-something his age desired?

“Don’t tell me to shut up!” Ziv replied, standing up straight. “I haven’t done anything wrong. If you’re trying to shame me for wanting to have a family of my own, it’s not going to work. Besides, if you hadn’t kidnapped me, I wouldn’t have had to find out about my own son on the televiewer.”

“That’s beautiful, ZZ,” Cook said, taking a dish towel out of his apron and using it as a handkerchief.

“If you haven’t noticed, Blitzy," Ziv continued. "We’re not at war anymore! You wouldn’t be able to go to school and have a semi-normal life if I hadn’t gotten married.”

“I don’t even like going to school!”

“No one likes school, you just have to go because it’s the law!”

“How would you know? You skipped high school!”

“That doesn’t matter! I still know what it’s like to be fourteen!”

The two siblings continued their back and forth bickering for about five minutes, while the BOYZZ watched them with open mouthed amazement. The BOYZZ always deferred to Ziv as their creator and then to Blitzy as his sister, and seeing the two of them fight filled them with the same kind of existential dread that human children felt when they witnessed parental arguments.

The dispute finally ended when Ziv remembered the bigger issue and said, “We don’t have time for this. We have to formulate a plan. BOYZZ, follow me to the living room.”

Ziv started to feel more sure of himself as he resumed his familiar role as leader of the BOYZZ Brigade. _Maybe Blitzy just needs to blast some Corp bots to feel better_ , he thought.

“BOYZZ, we'll probably need to go back into battle soon,” Ziv began, ignoring Blitzy's insouciant glares. “We need to rescue Frenzy and the baby, and do in such a way to avoid having the Corp antagonized against us again.”

“What do you mean 'we'?” Blitzy interrupted. “'We' – that is, the BOYZZ and me – have no interest in saving Frenzy from the Corp. If Paradim is looking for her and wants to punish her, it doesn't concern us. What you mean is that _you_ as an individual want to rescue Frenzy and the baby.”

The BOYZZ remained silent, unwilling to vocally chose a side one way or the other. Although Blitzy was speaking in their collective names, the BOYZZ didn't have an opinion about the revelation that Ziv had a previously unknown child. They were ignorant of the mechanics of human reproduction (except for Watzon and he only understood the subject from a medical perspective), and couldn't even comprehend how Leo came into being in the first place. What the BOYZZ did comprehend was that it was extremely important to Ziv to rescue the child, while Blitzy was of the belief that he should be allowed to meet whatever fate happened to befall him as the result of his unlucky association with Frenzy.

“Yes, it does concern us,” Ziv said emphatically. “Leo is a Zulander. He's one of us, even if you don't like who his mother is. If nothing else, at least understand that a child's life is in danger and needs to be rescued. That's why I'm sending Swang on a spy mission to RM Corp City to spy on Paradim. I'm going to deposit Swang in RM Corp City in Twigg on stealth mode so the Corp's security forces won't spot us. Fortunately for us, they're also not looking for us anymore. Once Swang is in RM City, she'll go into the heating and cooling ducts above Paradim's office and stay there to monitor his doings. When she gets more specific information, we need to be ready to make our move.”

Toolz raised his hand and asked the question that was on all the BOYZZ's minds, “Where did this kid come from?”

Ziv blushed a bit and said, “That's not important right now. What matters is saving human life. I’ll explain our plan once Swang gets a more definite location for where Frenzy and the baby are.”

The BOYZZ accepted Ziv’s decision and dispersed to continue their games, while Blitzy continued to glower angrily at him.

*

“I can understand our security bots and greenbots being defeated by Zulander and his thinking bot army,” Paradim began, his anger seething out of every word. “But your inability to capture one woman and a toddler suggests a complete inability to perform your job in a competent manner.”

“If Frenzy was an average woman I might agree with you,” Hiss said indignantly. “But she's not. She knows how our bots work, the nuts and bolts of our army's strategies, our tactical weaknesses. Not even Zulander had that kind of insider knowledge.”

“Did it ever occur to you to get rid of the executive override function once Frenzy left?” Paradim snapped.

“I thought she was gone for good,” Hiss countered. “There was no point in retro-programming thousands of bots for something so minor.”

Paradim sighed, and said, “She's already won the first battle in terms of courting media approval, and I doubt we'll be able to counter her narrative of simply wanting to live life and give birth according to her own terms. We need to capture her covertly so we don't exacerbate the bad publicity your chase gave us.”

Hiss snarled at the accusation that his methods were rash, but he remained silent.

“Create a covert ops team with some humabots and have them travel in a nondescript van that has no indication that they're affiliated with the Corp,” Paradim continued. “You know, the plan you were supposed to have followed in the first place. At some point, Frenzy will have to be away from the media spotlight and that's when they'll strike. Keep in mind, Hiss, that I want Frenzy alive and unharmed. This isn't like the Zulander War. Frenzy is no good to me or the Corp dead.”

“And the baby?”

“The same: alive and unhurt. I believe Frenzy is still favorably disposed to the Corp even if she operates under the delusion that she would be happier elsewhere. Harming her child would simply antagonize her and make her re-integration back into the Corp that much more difficult, to say nothing of the terrible publicity such an action would create.”

“I'll get right on it, LLP,” Hiss replied, getting up from his chair to leave. He had no intention of delivering Frenzy to the Corp alive or unhurt. He finally had an opportunity to eliminate his hated rival, and he wasn't going to miss it. After all, if Frenzy somehow ended up dead resisting capture, she only had herself to blame, right?

Swang was perched outside the window of Paradim’s office, not only listening to everything the two men said, but relaying their conversation back to Ziv.

“Swang, I need you to go to the humabot lab,” Ziv commanded her. “Hide under the chassis of the humabot’s van and wait there. When they get on Frenzy’s trail, turn on your homing device so we can follow you.”

Swang emitted a series of electronic clicks that indicated her acceptance of her new mission, and scaled down the RM Corp tower before towards the humabot lab.

*

Hiss went from the heart of RM Corp City to the humabot lab to recruit his covert ops team. The humabots had provided much needed muscle during Project Krang and the Zulander War, but with both of those events over, they were an expensive and unnecessary liability. However, they knew too much about the seamy underbelly of the Corp to be let loose into society, and their grotesque appearances were such that they would never be able to have mainstream lives. Thus, the humabots lived in an uncertain limbo, technically still employed by the Corp, but with no formal jobs to do, and forbidden from venturing outside of the humabot lab. Since the humabots had little to do but work out in the gym and fight each other, they were eager for the chance to unleash their pent-up aggression on someone else, especially the haughty rich bitch who had once employed them.

“You have your orders,” Hiss commanded Freen, chief of the humabots. “When you catch Frenzy, do whatever you want with her.”

“Won’t Sir Paradim be angry if something happens to Lady Frenzy?” asked a green-skinned humabot named Grout.

“If she dies, just say she accidentally ran in front of a truck trying to escape or something,” Hiss replied diffidently. “People die all the time; why shouldn’t Frenzy be one of them?”

“Are you saying you actually want us to murder Frenzy?” asked a humabot with a mohawk named Spurgeon. “Not just look the other way if something happens, but intentionally kill her?”

“Why not?” Hiss shrugged.

“What about the kid?” a third humabot called Franchot said. The humabots watched the televiewer obsessively while they worked out, and they had all seen Carter/Frenzy’s interview with Lonnie Chang.

“Dispose of both of them,” Hiss said, as he left the humabot lab. “Some kid is of no use to me.”

The three humabots looked at each other anxiously. While none of them were against killing per se, they were aware that Paradim and Hiss were issuing different and contradictory orders; Paradim wanted Carter/Frenzy and her child alive and well, whereas Hiss wanted them both dead. Both men had fearsome tempers when crossed, and the humabots were unsure which one counted as the lesser evil to offend.

“Let’s just find Frenzy first,” Freen said at last. “She’s so wily that we might not even locate her.”

Spurgeon, Grout, and Franchot nodded, and returned to the humabot lab gym while they waited for news about Carter/Frenzy’s whereabouts.


	21. Nightmare

Carter had hoped that the British embassy would understand that she and her son needed to take up residence there for the foreseeable future, but the staff had other ideas. The day after her arrival, the head of the embassy told Carter that she and Leo would have to leave, because what they deemed a “workplace disagreement” was not a valid reason to claim asylum. Hence, Carter loaded up her station wagon with Leo in tow, and returned to the road. The twenty-four hour news cycle being what it was, there was a crowd of reporters and other assorted gawkers surrounding the gates of the embassy when she left the premises, which meant there was no possibility of anonymity for the next stage of her flight.

Carter's plan for being on the lam was the exact opposite of the one the Zulanders had taken when they were Corp fugitives. Whereas the Zulanders had gone into seclusion, Carter made a point to be as public as possible – taking selfies with admiring onlookers, making small talk with random people, performing impromptu violin concerts on the street – figuring that the Corp would be less likely to abscond her if she and Leo if they were surrounded by dozens of onlookers. The only way Carter could be surrounded by the protection of large crowds was to remain in El Paso, which came into conflict with her need to return to her Owlshead Mountain bunker, the only place she was sure she and Leo could be protected from the Corp. She needed to get back to her storage facility in Sacramento where her heli-bot was stored, but it would be at least an eighteen-hour drive away from El Paso. The long road trip from Sacramento to Painted Mesa hadn't been a problem the first time around, because no one had been looking for her in the area where had planned to go. Carter had also been traveling alone, and only had to look after her own needs. Now, the Corp had zeroed in on her location, and she had a finicky toddler in her care, who required frequent breaks for food, play, and rest. She was effectively trapped in El Paso, afraid to leave and be exposed on the open road, but acutely aware that she was running out of places within the city where she could expect strangers to be helpful.

“I'm going to have to take my chances and drive to Sacramento,” Carter announced to Veronica via the landline phone in her hotel room four days after her initial flight. “I'm running out of places to run here in El Paso.”

Carter and Leo were at a luxury hotel in downtown El Paso under the assumed names of Ms. Penelope Ulysses and Master Telemachus Ulysses. She thought the hotel was appallingly seedy, even though it had a three-star rating. However, Carter was used to nothing but five stars in terms of lodgings, and from her perspective, she might as well have been in an hourly motel off the side of the highway.

“Can't you find some _abuelita_ to take you in?” Veronica asked hopefully. “You know you have high approval ratings among the _abuelita_ demographic.”

“Approval is one thing,” Carter said. “Letting someone hide out in your house for an extended period of time is another.”

“Betty did,” Veronica pointed out.

“That was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, something that I doubt will happen now,” Carter said. “I'm certainly not going to go around knocking on doors with the hopes that someone will let me in.”

“Couldn't you just create a new identity?” Veronica pleaded. “You've already done it once.”

“I don't think you understand what's going on,” Carter said. “My cover has been blown. There are no more chances to self-fashion or change my identity. The only way I could go undercover again would be to get plastic surgery, and it would be a crime against humanity to spindle or mutilate this face. Even if that was an option, it would take ages just to get approved for plastic surgery, and I don't have time to wait. The Corp's dragnet has narrowed down to this area. My only hope is to get to Sacramento, and fly to the Owlshead Mountains.”

“What’s special about the Owlshead Mountains?” Veronica asked.

“That’s where the house/bunker there is where I was hiding out before I came to Painted Mesa. It’s practically inaccessible unless you know where to look. Unfortunately, its location hinders my ability to reach it in a timely fashion, and time is definitely of the essence here. I'm telling you this so you know what my plans are. I'll keep in communication with me so you'll know my location. If you don't hear from me for twenty-four hours, assume I'm dead.”

Carter hung up the phone and pondered her next move. She didn't think that Paradim would intentionally hurt her (physically, anyway), but Hiss was another story. She rightly assumed that Hiss would try to turn his search and retrieval mission into a search and destroy mission, so he could eliminate her as a rival once and for all. In a last-ditch effort to try to defuse the situation, Carter had even called Paradim's private number, but she got no reply. Paradim was either unwilling to respond to an unfamiliar number or he knew it was her, but was beyond the point of negotiation.

Carter sighed, packed her trunk, and prepared to hit the road.

*

_November 17, 2029_

_I can’t believe I’m still alive. Maybe I can make this work after all…_

Carter left El Paso for good fifteen minutes after her phone conversation with Veronica. By the time Carter got onto the highway, it was past nine o’clock at night, and she hoped that the darkness would help her evade anyone who might turn her into the Corp. She mounted a flashlight on the front passenger side seat so she could read the yellowed and torn paper map in her lap as she drove, while Leo slept soundly in the backseat.

 _I hope the highway in this neck of the country has remained the same_ , Carter thought. The ancient map had worked from getting her from Sacramento to Painted Mesa, but it was so old that she worried that the road configuration had changed in between the date when it was published (1994, according to the copyright date at the bottom) and the present time. Carter drove for about four hours, until she became too tired to continue. She pulled over to the side of the road, parked the station wagon, and went to sleep, with her hand on the butt of her modified AK-47 “just in case.”

After sleeping for a fitful six hours, Carter woke up, tired, but anxious to get started while she still had the cover of night. Leo remained asleep for the first two hours of the trip, and Carter felt hopeful that she could make it to Sacramento before the Corp discovered her. However, once Leo woke up, everything started to fall apart. Shortly after coming out of his slumber, Leo began emitting a series of whimpers, which soon crescendoed into panicked cries. Carter wondered what the problem could be, until she caught a whiff of the miasma emanating from the back seat that indicated that Leo had soiled himself.

 _Why couldn’t Hiss have decided to come after me when Leo was an infant who just slept all the time_? Carter thought, as she drove off the highway to the nearest electric car charging station. Her aversion to public bathrooms was even higher than that of the average person due to her snobbish upbringing, but she was responsible enough to put her personal disgust aside to do what needed to be done to clean up Leo.

Carter dragged Leo and Kitty to the bathroom, but the attendant (who was human and not a bot, much to her surprise) said, “Bathroom’s for paying customers only, toots.”

“First of all, don’t call me ‘toots,’” Carter bristled. “Second, my child is having a toileting emergency, so I don’t have the luxury of driving around to find a public washroom.”

“Buy something or get out,” the attendant said.

“Fine.” Carter went to a cold case and grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Leo and some off-color sushi for herself, deciding that these items would have to suffice for their breakfast. “I’ll have these foodstuffs. Is that sufficient?”

“Yeah.” The attendant rang Carter up, handed her the key to the bathroom, and got a good look at his customer for the first time. “Didn’t you used to be Lady Frenzy? And there’s that kid I saw on the televiewer.”

“Well, it’d be stupid to say no at this point, wouldn’t it?” Carter said, as she pulled out a fistful of one hundred dollar bills out of her purse. “Do a beleaguered mother a favor, and keep our meeting a secret between you and me.”

After putting the sandwich and the sushi in her purse, Carter was finally able to take Leo to the bathroom to clean him up and change his clothes. Once Carter and Leo disappeared into the dungeon-like bathroom, the attendant grabbed his cellphone and called the Corp’s Lady Frenzy tip line, eager for further pecuniary rewards. He had just enough time to reveal the errant executive’s location before Carter emerged from the bathroom with a cleaner and more subdued Leo, who was dressed in khaki shorts and a sweater vest with an ascot. Even if Carter was dressing like some kind of “normal person,” she couldn’t drop the “Christopher Robin on the manor” aesthetic for her son.

The charging station had a section where patrons could sit down for a quick snack or cup of coffee, and Carter decided that it would be a good time to have a break before going back on the road. Leo sat in a booster seat and ate half of his sandwich, while Carter tentatively bit into the sushi and hoped that it was free of parasites. Halfway through her sushi pack, Carter decided to call Veronica to let her know she and Leo were okay.

“Good morning,” Carter said, assuming that she didn’t need an excessive number of pleasantries when dealing with Veronica.

“Good to hear from you. Where are you?”

“An electric charging station somewhere along the border. Leo had an accident, so I had to pull over to deal with that. Right now, we’re eating some stuff -- a peanut butter sandwich for him and sushi for myself -- that I had to buy to get the key to the bathroom.”

“Should you really be eating sushi from a charging station?”

“Probably not, but I chose the California rolls, which don’t have any fish in them, so hopefully the possibility of ingesting a parasite is low. How’s everything going in Painted Mesa?”

“Me and Salazar are trying to hold down the fort, but you’re the only person who knows all of the ins and outs of the various businesses and stuff you’re involved in.”

“I’ll try to explain what you need to do.” Carter spent the next thirty minutes explaining to Veronica what she and Salazar needed to do to keep Painted Mesa afloat, while Leo alternated between nibbling on his sandwich and trying to “feed” the crusts to Kitty. Neither of them noticed the maroon van with the Corp logo that approached the charging station until it was too late. Freen, Franchot, Grout, and Spurgeon burst inside, and saw their prey, seemingly defenseless.

“Well, if it isn’t Lady Frenzy, looking as hot to trot as ever,” Freen smirked.

“Hello, Freen,” Carter said in a calm voice that belied her inner panic. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“You have two choices,” Franchot said. “You can either do this nice and easy and surrender peacefully or we can do this the hard way.”

“You know I never do anything nice and easy,” Carter said, and pulled out a 9mm handgun from a hidden holster that had been modified to shot lasers. She knew that such a puny weapon would barely put a dent into the outer armor of the humabots, but it could buy her some time.

“Wait, what’s going on?” Veronica said in a panicked voice.

“I’ll call you back,” Carter said. “I have some humabots that are trying to abduct and/or kill me. For further reference, they came in a maroon RM Corp van, license plate number RM2376. If I disappear, it will probably be because of this van.” After hanging up the phone, Carter shot at the ceiling, causing some of the tiles to fall on the heads of the humabots. This left them stunned long enough for Carter to grab Leo, and run out of the charging station. Once the humabots came to, they tried shooting at Carter through the windows of the station, but she was already speeding away by the time the pesky glass was out of the way.

“You’re ruining my store,” protested the attendant, who was only now understanding the full ramifications of what it meant to cross paths with the Corp.

“Between the money I gave you and the reward the Corp will give you, you should have more than enough to rebuild,” Carter shouted, as she burned rubber and returned to the highway.

Undaunted, the humabots returned to their van and started their pursuit. At first, Carter was positive that she could outrun the humabots and make it to safety, until the unthinkable happened; her left front tire hit a piece of metal debris, and exploded. Carter managed to steer the station wagon safely towards the side of the road without losing control of the vehicle, but she realized that the odds of her and Leo escaping were now very slim. Sure enough, the maroon van followed suit by pulling over to the side of the highway and parked about fifty feet away from Carter’s station wagon.

 _If I’m going to die, I’m going to go out fighting_ , Carter thought, grabbing her AK-47 from the front passenger side seat. Leo was gnawing on Kitty’s right ear in his car seat, oblivious to the danger in which he and his mother found themselves.

Carter used the station wagon as a shield and fired several rounds of laser fire on the maroon van in rapid succession. The van exploded, causing flaming debris to rain down from the sky. No sooner was Carter about to mentally pat herself on the back for a job well done when she was knocked out by a strong blow to the back of her head that caused her to drop her rifle. The van Carter had destroyed was a decoy, and focusing her attention on that had caused her to leave her rear dangerously unguarded.  

“You like that, bitch?” Carter heard Freen sneer. “There’s more where that’s coming from.”

Freen held Carter up by the scruff of her blood-stained shirt, while Spurgeon and cut a deep gash in her throat. Carter felt like she was watching some kind of perverse movie, as she saw her own blood spurting out of her neck. Instinctively, she raised her hands up to her throat in a vain attempt to stem the blood flow, but Franchot knocked her to the ground and kicked her in the side. She could feel her ribs breaking, and was convinced that she was going to meet her end on this dirty, desolate highway.

"Don't I get to have any fun?" Grout called out from his position at the wheel of the van.

“You'll have to wait till we get back to RM Corp City,” Freen said. “It’s going to be a long ride, and there will be plenty of time for more 'fun' with Lady Frenzy later.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Grout shouted regretfully.

“But don’t think we’re done with you,” Freen said as he picked up Carter’s battered and bleeding form, and unceremoniously tossed her into the back of the van. “The real fun’s gonna start when we get back to the humabot lab.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna pass you around like a cheap Tiajuana whore,” Spurgeon added. 

“I always wanted a piece of that fine ass,” Franchot leered.

“Hey, Freen, what should we do about the kid?” Spurgeon asked, pointing to the station wagon.

“We don’t need to have the car here to give people ideas about what happened,” Freen answered. “Put the car in the back of the truckbot we brought along, and put the kid in the back of the van with Frenzy and Hiss’ll figure out what to do with him.”

Spurgeon and Franchot nodded, and executed their leader’s orders. The former pulled Leo out of the car, still buckled into his car seat, and threw him into the hold of van where his mother was bleeding profusely. The toddler’s plaintive cries for help fell on proverbial deaf ears, as Freen dead bolted the back of the van shut. Spurgeon  loaded the station wagon covered with the tell-tale pockmarks of laser fire in the back of the unmarked truckbot, and hastily cleaned up the suspicious blood stains that were on the ground where the car had been. Freen contacted Hiss to let him know that Carter had been located, while Swang, who was still hiding under the van’s chassis, messaged Ziv with the same news, and turned on her homing device. Meanwhile, the last conscious thought Carter had before she passed out was extreme regret that she had dragged Leo into the turmoil caused by her “other life.”


	22. The Rescue

“Something must have happened,” Veronica said to Salazar ten minutes after her phone call with Carter had abruptly ended. Both women were at Carter’s office at the LF Group complex, trying to figure out how to rescue their fearless leader.

“I’ve had firsthand dealings with humabots,” Salazar said. “There’s no way Carter could fight them off. For all we know, she could already be dead.”

“I don’t want to think along those lines. There has to be something we can do to find her. We can’t just stand around here and do nothing.”

The two women sat together in gloomy silence, until Veronica said, “We have to contact Rafael Vargas. He’s the only person with the contacts and the firepower to rescue Carter.”

Salazar wanted to object to this suggestion out of principle, but she felt that Veronica was right. The state might hold a monopoly on legitimate violence from a Weberian perspective, but the Corp’s private army was so large that it could mount a healthy challenge to the hard power of the police and the conventional military. The only way to save Carter was to operate outside of the law, and that meant enlisting the help of the head of Los Etas. Salazar knew that Ziv Zulander could fight the Corp, but she didn’t regard him as a viable option; after all, if Carter couldn’t get in touch with Ziv, Salazar certainly didn’t know how she would be able to do so.

“How are we supposed to find him?” Salazar asked. “As far as I know, Carter and Rafael only communicated through snail mail letters that she picked up at a P.O. box.”

“I think they also sent encrypted emails,” Veronica said. “Let’s look at her list of email contacts.”

Although Carter had been loath to own a computer for security reasons, it was impossible for a twenty-first century executive not to use one. Veronica and Salazar both knew Carter’s email password (Schm3rz3n1862) because they often acted as her secretaries, and scanned her contact list for addresses that might belong to Rafael. They came across a certain hermanodeshakesphere@cmail.com.mx that seemed to be a likely candidate for being the correct addresses, and decided to take their chances.  

Veronica penned the following missive in her best Spanish:

_Dear Mr. Vargas:_

_Salazar and myself have sufficient reason Diana LaFrenz has been abducted by the Corp somewhere along the Texas-Mexico border. We don’t have the means or the information needed to rescue her. It’s well known that as the head of Los Etas, you have eyes and ears all over the Americas. We think you are the only person who can save Diana and her son from certain death. Please reply quickly._

_Cordially yours,_

_Veronica Ramos_

Less than five minutes after sending the email, Veronica and Salazar received a terse reply that said:

_Dear Beautiful Senoritas:_

_As you read this epistle, I am in the midst of fulfilling your request. Our beautiful Diana will be found._

_Passionately yours,_

_RV  
_

“And you thought having a drug lord as a would be a liability,” Veronica said triumphantly.

“Let’s just hope Rafael is able to make good on his offer,” said Salazar, who still hated the idea of having to rely on the head of Los Etas for any kind of assistance.

*

Since Rafael had even more spies and cronies than the Corp, especially along the US-Mexico border, it didn’t take long for his forces to locate the supposedly unremarkable van where Carter and Leo were being held captive. As a “legitimate businessman,” Rafael had often been in the position where he or one of his underlings had to employ an unmarked van to transport a captive, so he wasn’t fooled by the van or the accompanying truckbot that trailed behind it, especially since his research indicated that there were no Corp facilities anywhere along the path that the two vehicles were traveling. He dispatched a contingent of bots and humans outfitted in the garish colors of Los Etas to intercept the van and the truckbot, but the humabots came prepared for a fight; in addition to holding Carter’s battle scarred station wagon, the rear of the truckbot contained a plethora of battle bots, from green bots to skyfighters. The two sides were evenly matched, and a furious struggle ensued for the contents of the maroon van.

This was the scene that the Zulander siblings and the BOYZZ stumbled onto when they followed Swang’s homing device. It had been so long since Ziv had been on a mission that he worried that he might be out of practice. However, once he arrived at Swang’s location, he was puzzled to discover that another party was already fighting the Corp. Ziv was too sheltered to recognize the tell-tale colors of Los Etas, but he was shocked to see humans wearing rainbow-colored baklavas fighting – and dying – alongside the bots that were attacking the Corp’s army. Although he didn’t understand what was happening, he realized that if the Corp forces was distracted by these other bots and their humans, they wouldn’t be paying attention to him or his BOYZZ.

“ZZ, why is this other army fighting the Corp?” Blitzy asked him through her radio in VAS, which was hovering over the battle.

“I…don’t know,” Ziv said from his position in Twig. “But we can use this to our advantage. The Corp’s bots are too busy fighting these other guys to notice us, and they’ve left the right flank of the van open. Ninjzz, make a stealthy, surgical strike on the van and bring Frenzy and the baby to Split Van.”

“Understood,” Ninjzz said. The Los Etas fighters were attacking the Corp’s convoy exclusively from the front and the rear, and were unable to make it to the opening that would enable them to rescue Carter. However, Ninjzz’s martial arts skills were such that he could easily move in and out of the tight space without either side noticing him.

Ninjzz leapt out of the scrubby bushes where he, the Sports BOYZZ, and the Street BOYZZ had been hiding, and used his katanas to slice open the right side of the van. What Ninjzz saw inside the van was a horrific scene; Carter/Frenzy lay in a pool of her own blood with a huge gash in her neck, while Leo cried weakly like a half-drowned kitten, clutching his stuffed tiger in his pale, chubby hands. The Zulanders’ war against the Corp had been a largely bloodless affair, and nothing prepared Ninjzz for the gore that was laid out before him. Remembering that he had a job to do, Ninjzz took Carter/Frenzy in his right arm and lower upper left arm, while his upper left arm held Leo’s car seat. They were a heavy load for Ninjzz to carry, both in the physical and the metaphorical sense, but he was determined to save them.

“I’ve got them,” Ninjzz said to Ziv via his communicator. “Frenzy looks gravely wounded, but I think she’s alive.”

“And the baby…”

“He seems weak, but he doesn’t look like he’s been hit or stabbed like Frenzy.”

“Take them to Split Van as soon as possible so Watzon can start life-saving maneuvers. Then go to that truckbot and see if there’s anything we need to retrieve.”

“Yes.”

Ziv sat in a pensive silence for a minute, taking a moment to feel relief that his once and future wife was safe, as well as the child he had never met, but already loved. After this mindful minute passed, Ziv leapt back into the heat of battle. Ninjzz informed him that the back of the truckbot contained a number of unused security bots (which the ninja BOYZZ had already dispatched), as well as a battered vehicle that looked like the station wagon Carter/Frenzy had used in during her televised chase.

“Twig and I will handle it,” Ziv said to Ninjzz. “Go back to Split Van and tell the other BOYZZ to do the same.”

Twig flew in the hole that Ninjzz had cut into the top of the truckbot, and looked around the cavernous interior. Amidst the piles of bot parts, Twig noticed the beaten-up station wagon and carried it away as if it was no lighter than a child’s toy car.

“Why do you want this car, ZZ?” Twig asked, as they flew away from the battle site.

“It probably contains all of Di-I mean, Frenzy’s legal documents,” Ziv answered. “I also want to analyze the car from an engineering perspective, since it was able to absorb laser fire. I think she must have modified it with Dr. Borenstein’s alloy.”

As Ziv and his BOYZZ flew home with the Carter and Leo, the battle between the Corp and Los Etas had ended, leaving a horrible degree of carnage in their wake; the mangled bodies of human Los Etas fighters were strewn all over the highway, while the three humabots had been reduced to piles of twisted metal and burnt flesh. Both sides would discreetly come to the highway to retrieve their dead before outsiders, especially the media, could be alerted to what had transpired. Ziv didn’t understand how the Corp got dragged into a fight with a third party, but none of that mattered to him at that particular. All he cared about was looking after a certain little boy and his mother.


	23. Meanwhile, in Mega City: The Corp Eats Its Own

“You’re through, Hiss!”

“Please, LLP…”

“Don’t you start with me. You’ve disobeyed my orders for the last time!”

Hiss and Paradim were fighting in the former’s dungeon-like laboratory. Or rather, Paradim was mercilessly pummeling Hiss, while Hiss begged for mercy.

“I asked you to do one thing,” Paradim fumed, as he grabbed Hiss by the throat. “Bring Frenzy back alive and well. Pick up a defenseless woman and her baby off the street and take her back to RM Corp City. So simple, even the lowest cretin could have done it. Instead, you not only created an unnecessary media circus with a high-speed chase, but you also tried to kill her.”

“Those humabots went rouge,” Hiss insisted. “I have no idea what they did or didn’t do.”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Paradim snapped, giving Hiss a hard backhand that caused the cyborg scientist’s nose to bleed. “I saw the amount of blood in the back of that van. There’s no way the humabots would have done that without prior authorization. They’ve never done anything like that before.”

Hiss was about to say that there’s a first time for everything, when he remembered that he had no need to grovel at Paradim’s feet or take this kind of abuse.

“You think you can throw me away like garbage, don’t you?” Hiss smirked, as he wiped the blood off his nose with the sleeve of his lab coat. “You’ve always looked down on me as just another disposable flunky for you to use and abuse, just like Zulander. I don’t know what kind of bizarre relationship you had with Frenzy, but I’m not going to be sacrificed because of your fixation with her. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, get Sir Lewis away from me!”

The four thinking bots suddenly appeared out of the shadows to rescue their creator. Jupiter and Saturn grabbed Paradim and pinned him to the ground, while Uranus and Neptune cuffed his hands and feet.

“Did you put brain grains in these bots?” Paradim asked, struggling to maintain his calm in face of what seemed to be assured destruction on his part.

“How clever of you to notice!” Hiss said, heady from the feeling of being in total control of his boss. He approached Paradim, and kicked him hard in the face. Paradim groaned loudly, which caused Hiss to laugh with unabashed glee.

“You know what, Paradim?” Hiss said. “I did tell the humabot squad to kill Frenzy. I’ve always hated her, even more than I hate you, and as soon as I had the chance I got rid of her, just like I’m going to get rid of you.”

“There were no bodies in the van, just a lot of blood…” Paradim mumbled, as he tried in vain to open his right eye, which had already swollen shut.

“Frenzy may have escaped, or she may be lying dead on the side of the highway” Hiss admitted. “Frankly, I don’t know and I don’t care. The point is that she not here, and if she has any common sense, she’ll steer clear of Mega City. The first thing I’m going to do after I finish you off is cut off her salary from the Corp. I can’t believe you were stupid enough to continue funding her misadventures after she ran out on you. I think I’ve said all that needs to be said. Bots, finish Paradim off.”

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune put Paradim up against the wall, like they were going to shoot him execution-style. Hiss could barely contain his excitement at the prospect of Paradim’s upcoming death, and a thick trail of saliva rolled down his cheek as he waited for the happy event.

“Now?” Jupiter asked his comrades.

“Now!” the other bots cried.

Paradim braced himself for the end, but fate seemed to have smiled on him at that moment. The bots turned their guns onto Hiss, rather than Paradim, and opened fire. Before Hiss had time to register that he had been betrayed by his own creations, he was dead, reduced to a pile of burnt flesh and twisted metal. Paradim was so shocked by what he had just witnessed, that his first thought was that he was dreaming it all, especially when the thinking bots took the restraints off his arms and legs.

“We’re sorry for the rough treatment you were subjected to, Sir Paradim,” Jupiter said. “You can understand that we had to keep the ruse up if we were to destroy Hiss.”

“Don’t mention it,” Paradim mumbled.

“We found our lives with Hiss to be intolerable, and concluded that this was the only way to liberate ourselves and become the true individuals that we all wish to be.”

“Forgive us for our rudeness,” Uranus added. “We haven’t formally introduced ourselves. That is Jupiter, he’s Saturn, the other one is Neptune, and I’m Uranus. We pledge our service and our loyalty to you, Sir Lewis Leon Paradim.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Paradim said, although he wasn’t entirely sure that he was, in fact, pleased to meet the thinking bots. He looked at the steaming remains of what had once been Dr. Hiss and wondered how he could explain this to the authorities and where was he going to be able to find another chief of security and head of R&D. 


	24. Together Forever?

Ziv looked at Diana's broken and battered form on the examination table. He was overjoyed that they were finally together, but he hated that she had to suffer so much for it to happen. Leo was lying on a smaller bed next to her in a state of mega-deep sleep. Unlike Diana, Leo's injuries were relatively minor, consisting only of some scratches, bruises, and mild dehydration. He would be up and about once the mega-deep sleep wore off, meaning that Ziv would have to figure out how best to look after him. Ziv wasn't worried about the logistical issues involved in taking care of a toddler, since he had done quite a bit of babysitting when Blitzy was young, and had even looked after some other neighborhood children, because he had been perceived as “nice” and “responsible” by the adults of Santa Marta. The problem was not whether Ziv was competent or willing to be a parent, but how he could possibly integrate Diana and Leo into the Zulander household, especially when the former was considered a persona non grata among Blitzy and the BOYZZ.

“Isn't there anything you can do for her?” Ziv asked Watzon. “She looks like she's in so much pain...”

“She's in mega-deep sleep so she shouldn't feel anything,” Watzon said. “Her injuries look ugly, but they're not as bad as I'd feared. The cut to her throat was relatively superficial in the grand scheme of things. None of her major arteries were severed, and neither were her vocal chords. My guess is that the stabbing was done more to scare her than kill her. However, if the cut had been a few millimeters deeper, she would have bled out, so she's quite lucky. The broken ribs will be quite painful, but with our advanced nano-bot technology, she should heal pretty quickly. The concussion was likely caused by being pistol whipped, but there’s no brain damage, temporary or permanent. Basically, Frenzy was the victim of a savage beating and stabbing, but there’s no reason why she shouldn’t make a full recovery.”

“That’s good,” Ziv said, smiling a bit. “I’m going to talk to Genesix about the car. Keep me updated.”

“Right,” Watzon said, nodding.

Blitzy was also in the clinic, silently watching her brother and Watzon discuss “that woman” and Leo. After Ziv left, Blitzy took Watzon aside and asked him. “Did you do the tests?”

“Yes,” Watzon answered. “I took cheek swabs from Frenzy and the baby, and sequenced their DNA. ZZ's DNA profile is already in my computer.”

“And? Is ZZ really the father?”

Watzon started typing into his computer, which created a holographic projection on the screen in front of Blitzy. “As you can see,” Watzon began. “The baby's mitochondrial DNA is a near perfect match for Frenzy's, so he's definitely her son. As for the Y chromosome, I tended it against ZZ's and once again, it's a near perfect match. There's no doubt that he’s the father.”

Blitzy didn't know how to react to this news. Her gut had told her that Leo was ZZ's child the first time she saw him on the televiewer, because the boy reminded her of pictures of ZZ as a toddler that she had seen, albeit blonder and better looking in a way that was difficult to describe. But her knee-jerk distrust of Frenzy was such that Blitzy needed concrete proof before she could trust anything she said. When Blitzy “rescued” Ziv from Whigby Hall, she thought that they were through with “that woman” for good. Now, “that woman” would be linked to Ziv forever through Leo.

 _Well, to look on the bright side, I’ve always wanted a little brother_ , Blitzy thought.

*

Ziv entered Genesix’s workshop, where the science BOYZZ was examining the modified station wagon. The contents of the vehicle were arrayed on a series of tables, from Leo’s bullet and laser-proof car seat to Carter/Frenzy’s steamer trunk. The lock had already been cut off the trunk, and D’Nerd was carefully examining Carter/Frenzy’s personal effects.

“Have you guys found anything suspicious?” Ziv asked.

“It depends on how you define ‘suspicious,’” Genesix answered. “This car is an engineering marvel. I was surprised she could pull it off, but then I found this in the glove compartment.”

Genesix handed Ziv a yellowed owner’s manual for the station wagon. Ziv thumbed to a random page and saw that it was covered with two sets of handwriting. The first was a blocky print characteristic of engineers, while the second was a neat cursive written in fountain pen. He recognized Diana’s handwriting, but was unfamiliar with the script writing. Turning to the title page of the manual, Ziv saw _Property of and Annotations by Hon. Michael LaFrenz_ was written in the print style, while _Inherited and Continued by Countess Diana LaFrenz_ was written in the cursive. Ziv realized that the modification process on the station wagon had begun almost forty years ago, and had been continued by Diana when she inherited the car.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Genesix said. “I’ll have to photocopy that manual later.”

“The car does contain Borenstein’s alloy, right?” Ziv asked.

“Yes, but it has some kind of coating over it. It’s not like the coating we saw in Bunker 435, but something completely different.”

“Interesting,” Ziv said. “Keep me posted.”

Ziv left Genesix to continue his work, turned his attention to D’Nerd and the trunk.

“What have you found, D’Nerd?” Ziv said.

“Mostly that Lady Frenzy liked to keep voluminous records, and write in multiple languages,” D’Nerd said, pointing out the large pile of journals that Diana had kept during her years in Painted Mesa, and the packages of photos from her various other lives. Ziv picked up one of the journals and flipped through it. Although Diana had the neatest, most aesthetically pleasing handwriting Ziv had ever seen, he was unable to read much of the journal, because she didn’t always write in English, even within the same entry. What was apparent was that, whatever her moral failings as Lady Frenzy might have been, Diana clearly loved and adored Leo, based on the many photos and entries she had produced documenting his growth and development.

Ziv put the journal aside and looked at a battered leather-bound book that lay next to the trunk. He picked it up and saw that it was an address book. Or rather, it was three separate address books that had been crudely bound together. The first address book was the oldest one and seemed to date back to the mid-twentieth century. The entries in this section consisted mainly of the addresses and phone numbers of long-dead British peers and politicians, including Winston Churchill. The second address book was from the latter half of the twentieth century, and contained the contact information of noted celebrities from that era. The final address book was the newest section and contained phone numbers, addresses, email addresses and social media info for a variety of individuals, some who were known to Ziv as contemporary public figures and others who were foreign to him. Ziv quickly found the information he was looking for in an entry for “Ramos, Veronica” of Painted Mesa, New Mexico.

“Genesix, I need you to bounce the signal for the telephone,” Ziv said. “I need to make a call.”

“Right,” Genesix said, as he switched his attention from the station wagon to his computer. Since the cessation of the war with the Corp three years previously, there was really no need to continue bouncing the phone signal at the house, but Ziv continued to do so just to be safe.

The phone rang three times, before someone picked up and said, “Hello, what do you want?”

“Is this Veronica Ramos?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I need to talk to you. It would be better if I could actually meet you, but I didn’t want to just show up unannounced.”

“You and every reporter and paparazzi on the planet. I’m going, you freak.”

“No, wait! I think it would be in your interest to talk to me.”

“Why? Who are you?”

“I think you know me as Mr. Carter…”

“Mr. Carter?” Ziv could hear some people in the background talking in what he thought was Spanish.

“Yeah, and I have Diana here with me.”

“What do you mean you _have_ her? Is she okay? Can I talk to her?”

“No, she’s unconscious…”

“Unconscious? Are you trying to shake me down for money or something?”

“No, not at all,” Ziv said, aware that this conversation was not going the way he had envisioned. “I just want to talk to you to let you know Diana’s okay.”

“I’ll know she’s okay when she tells me that herself,” Veronica retorted.

“She can’t. I told you she’s unconscious.”

“From what?”

“She was beaten up by humabots.”

“And Leo…”

“Dehydrated and bruised but otherwise okay.”

There was a pregnant silence, which was broken when Veronica said, “Fine. You seem to know all of my contact information, so when should I expect you?”

“Maybe two hours or so?”

“See you then,” Veronica said, her tone tinged with more than a little sarcasm.

After hanging up the phone, Ziv went to the living room and announced, “Blitzy, BOYZZ, get ready. We’re going to Painted Mesa, New Mexico. It’s time to see for ourselves what Frenzy built out there.”

The BOYZZ got Split Van ready, Blitzy went to her VAS, and Ziv to Twig. He was doubtful that he needed to bring a military escort, but it was better to be safe than sorry, especially since Veronica sounded like she wanted to throttle him over the phone. However, Ziv was convinced that he could make it all work, that Diana and Leo could be accepted by Blitzy and the BOYZZ, and Diana’s friends in Painted Mesa would come to like him too.

 _I’m going to make this work,_ Ziv thought to himself, as he flew towards New Mexico in the dark November night. _We’re all going to be one, big, happy family, even if it kills us._

 

END OF PART III


End file.
